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•    •  •  ••  •••  .•• "*•. 

•V«  •  I."  •  *•••    *  •!  I     I  .*"»       * 


She  had  meant  to  wait  for  him  on  the  Terrace. 


-  SANCTUARY- 

BY 

EDITH     WHARTON 
ri 

WITH     ILLUSTRATIONS     BY 
WALTER  APPLETON  CLARK 


CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
NEW   YORK  I  MDCCCCIII 


COPYRIGHT,    1903,    BY    CHARLES    SCRIBNER  S    SONS 
PUBLISHED,    OCTOBER,    1903 


\ 
5  5  3 


THE  MERRYMOUNT  PRESS,  BOSTON 


SANCTUARY 
PART    I 


226659 


SANCTUARY 

PART     I 

I 

IT  is  not  often  that  youth  allows  itself 
to  feel  undividedly  happy:  the  sensa 
tion  is  too  much  the  result  of  selection  and 
elimination  to  be  within  reach  of  the  awak 
ening  clutch  on  life.  But  Kate  Orme,  for 
once,  had  yielded  herself  to  happiness,  let 
ting  it  permeate  every  faculty  as  a  spring 
rain  soaks  into  a  germinating  meadow. 
There  was  nothing  to  account  for  this  sud 
den  sense  of  beatitude ;  but  was  it  not  this 
precisely  which  made  it  so  irresistible,  so 
overwhelming  ?  There  had  been,  within  the 
last  two  months — since  her  engagement  to 
Denis  Peyton — no  distinct  addition  to  the 
sum  of  her  happiness,  and  no  possibility, 
she  would  have  affirmed,  of  adding  per 
ceptibly  to  a  total  already  incalculable.  In 
wardly  and  outwardly  the  conditions  of  her 
[3] 


SANCTUARY 

life  were  unchanged;  but  whereas,  before, 
the  air  had  been  full  of  flitting  wings,  now 
they  seemed  to  pause  over  her  and  she 
could  trust  herself  to  their  shelter. 

Many  influences  had  combined  to  build 
up  the  centre  of  brooding  peace  in  which 
she  found  herself.  Her  nature  answered  to 
the  finest  vibrations,  and  at  first  her  joy 
in  loving  had  been  too  great  not  to  bring 
with  it  a  certain  confusion,  a  readjusting 
of  the  whole  scenery  of  life.  She  found  her 
self  in  a  new  country,  wherein  he  who  had 
led  her  there  was  least  able  to  be  her  guide. 
There  were  moments  when  she  felt  that 
the  first  stranger  in  the  street  could  have  in 
terpreted  her  happiness  for  her  more  easily 
than  Denis.  Then,  as  her  eye  adapted  itself, 
as  the  lines  flowed  into  each  other,  open 
ing  deep  vistas  upon  new  horizons,  she  be 
gan  to  enter  into  possession  of  her  king 
dom,  to  entertain  the  actual  sense  of  its 
belonging  to  her.  But  she  had  never  before 
[4] 


SANCTUARY 

felt  that  she  also  belonged  to  it;  and  this 
was  the  feeling  which  now  came  to  com 
plete  her  happiness,  to  give  it  the  hallow 
ing  sense  of  permanence. 

She  rose  from  the  writing-table  where, 
list  in  hand,  she  had  been  going  over  the 
wedding-invitations,  and  walked  toward  the 
drawing-room  window.  Everything  about 
her  seemed  to  contribute  to  that  rare  har 
mony  of  feeling  which  levied  a  tax  on  every 
sense.  The  large  coolness  of  the  room,  its 
fine  traditional  air  of  spacious  living,  its  out 
look  over  field  and  woodland  toward  the 
lake  lying  under  the  silver  bloom  of  Sep 
tember;  the  very  scent  of  the  late  violets 
in  a  glass  on  the  writing-table;  the  rosy- 
mauve  masses  of  hydrangea  in  tubs  along 
the  terrace ;  the  fall,  now  and  then,  of  a  leaf 
through  the  still  air — all,  somehow,  were 
mingled  in  the  suffusion  of  well-being  that 
yet  made  them  seem  but  so  much  dross 
upon  its  current. 

[5] 


SANCTUARY 

The  girl's  smile  prolonged  itself  at  the 
sight  of  a  figure  approaching  from  the  lower 
slopes  above  the  lake.  The  path  was  a  short 
cut  from  the  Peyton  place,  and  she  had 
known  that  Denis  would  appear  in  it  at 
about  that  hour.  Her  smile,  however,  was 
prolonged  not  so  much  by  his  approach  as 
by  her  sense  of  the  impossibility  of  com 
municating  her  mood  to  him.  The  feeling 
did  not  disturb  her.  She  could  not  imagine 
sharing  her  deepest  moods  with  any  one, 
and  the  world  in  which  she  lived  with 
Denis  was  too  bright  and  spacious  to  ad 
mit  of  any  sense  of  constraint.  Her  smile 
was  in  truth  a  tribute  to  that  clear-eyed 
directness  of  his  which  was  so  often  a  refuge 
from  her  own  complexities. 

Denis  Peyton  was  used  to  being  met 
with  a  smile.  He  might  have  been  pardoned 
for  thinking  smiles  the  habitual  wear  of  the 
human  countenance;  and  his  estimate  of 
life  and  of  himself  was  necessarily  tinged 
[6] 


SANCTUARY 

by  the  cordial  terms  on  which  they  had  al 
ways  met  each  other.  He  had  in  fact  found 
life,  from  the  start,  an  uncommonly  agree 
able  business,  culminating  fitly  enough  in 
his  engagement  to  the  only  girl  he  had 
ever  wished  to  marry,  and  the  inheritance, 
from  his  unhappy  step-brother,  of  a  fortune 
which  agreeably  widened  his  horizon.  Such 
a  combination  of  circumstances  might  well 
justify  a  young  man  in  thinking  himself 
of  some  account  in  the  universe;  and  it 
seemed  the  final  touch  of  fitness  that  the 
mourning  which  Denis  still  wore  for  poor 
Arthur  should  lend  a  new  distinction  to 
his  somewhat  florid  good  looks. 

Kate  Orme  was  not  without  an  amused 
perception  of  her  future  husband's  point  of 
view ;  but  she  could  enter  into  it  with  the 
tolerance  which  allows  for  the  inconscient 
element  in  all  our  judgments.  There  was, 
for  instance,  no  one  more  sentimentally 
humane  than  Denis's  mother,  the  second 
[7  ] 


SANCTUARY 

Mrs.  Peyton,  a  scented  silvery  person  whose 
lavender  silks  and  neutral-tinted  manner 
expressed  a  mind  with  its  blinds  drawn 
down  toward  all  the  unpleasantnesses  of 
life ;  yet  it  was  clear  that  Mrs.  Peyton  saw 
a  "dispensation"  in  the  fact  that  her  step 
son  had  never  married,  and  that  his  death 
had  enabled  Denis,  at  the  right  moment, 
to  step  gracefully  into  affluence.  Was  it 
not,  after  all,  a  sign  of  healthy-mindedness 
to  take  the  gifts  of  the  gods  in  this  reli 
gious  spirit,  discovering  fresh  evidence  of 
"design"  in  what  had  once  seemed  the  sad 
fact  of  Arthur's  inaccessibility  to  correc 
tion  ?  Mrs.  Peyton,  beautifully  conscious  of 
having  done  her  "best"  for  Arthur,  would 
have  thought  it  unchristian  to  repine  at  the 
providential  failure  of  her  efforts.  Denis's 
deductions  were,  of  course,  a  little  less  di 
rect  than  his  mother's.  He  had,  besides, 
been  fond  of  Arthur,  and  his  efforts  to 
keep  the  poor  fellow  straight  had  been  less 
[8] 


SANCTUARY 

didactic  and  more  spontaneous.  Their  re 
sult  read  itself,  if  not  in  any  change  in 
Arthur's  character,  at  least  in  the  revised 
wording  of  his  will ;  and  Denis's  moral  sense 
was  pleasantly  fortified  by  the  discovery 
that  it  very  substantially  paid  to  be  a  good 
fellow. 

The  sense  of  general  providentialness  on 
which  Mrs.  Peyton  reposed  had  in  fact 
been  confirmed  by  events  which  reduced 
Denis's  mourning  to  a  mere  tribute  of  re 
spect — since  it  would  have  been  a  mockery 
to  deplore  the  disappearance  of  any  one 
who  had  left  behind  him  such  an  unsavory 
wake  as  poor  Arthur.  Kate  did  not  quite 
know  what  had  happened :  her  father  was 
as  firmly  convinced  as  Mrs.  Peyton  that 
young  girls  should  not  be  admitted  to  any 
open  discussion  of  life.  She  could  only 
gather,  from  the  silences  and  evasions  amid 
which  she  moved,  that  a  woman  had  turned 
up — a  woman  who  was  of  course  "dread- 
[9] 


SANCTUARY 

ful,"  and  whose  dreadfulness  appeared  to 
include  a  sort  of  shadowy  claim  upon  Ar 
thur.  But  the  claim,  whatever  it  was,  had 
been  promptly  discredited.  The  whole  ques 
tion  had  vanished  and  the  woman  with  it. 
The  blinds  were  drawn  again  on  the  ugly 
side  of  things,  and  life  was  resumed  on 
the  usual  assumption  that  no  such  side 
existed.  Kate  knew  only  that  a  darkness 
had  crossed  her  sky  and  left  it  as  unclouded 
as  before. 

Was  it,  perhaps,  she  now  asked  herself, 
the  very  lifting  of  the  cloud — remote,  un- 
threatening  as  it  had  been — which  gave 
such  new  serenity  to  her  heaven?  It  was 
horrible  to  think  that  one's  deepest  security 
was  a  mere  sense  of  escape — that  happi 
ness  was  no  more  than  a  reprieve.  The  per 
versity  of  such  ideas  was  emphasized  by 
Peyton's  approach.  He  had  the  gift  of  re 
storing  things  to  their  normal  relations,  of 
carrying  one  over  the  chasms  of  life  through 
[10] 


SANCTUARY 

the  closed  tunnel  of  an  incurious  cheerful 
ness.  All  that  was  restless  and  questioning 
in  the  girl  subsided  in  his  presence,  and  she 
was  content  to  take  her  love  as  a  gift  of 
grace,  which  began  just  where  the  office 
of  reason  ended.  She  was  more  than  ever, 
to-day,  in  this  mood  of  charmed  surrender. 
More  than  ever  he  seemed  the  keynote  of 
the  accord  between  herself  and  life,  the 
centre  of  a  delightful  complicity  in  every 
surrounding  circumstance.  One  could  not 
look  at  him  without  seeing  that  there  was 
always  a  fair  wind  in  his  sails. 

It  was  carrying  him  toward  her,  as  usual, 
at  a  quick  confident  pace,  which  never 
theless  lagged  a  little,  she  noticed,  as  he 
emerged  from  the  beech-grove  and  struck 
across  the  lawn.  He  walked  as  though  he 
were  tired.  She  had  meant  to  wait  for  him 
on  the  terrace,  held  in  check  by  her  usual 
inclination  to  linger  on  the  threshold  of 
her  pleasures ;  but  now  something  drew  her 


SANCTUARY 

toward  him,  and  she  went  quickly  down 
the  steps  and  across  the  lawn. 

"Denis,  you  look  tired.  I  was  afraid 
something  had  happened." 

She  had  slipped  her  hand  through  his 
arm,  and  as  they  moved  forward  she  glanced 
up  at  him,  struck  not  so  much  by  any  new 
look  in  his  face  as  by  the  fact  that  her  ap 
proach  had  made  no  change  in  it. 

"I  am  rather  tired.  —  Is  your  father  in?" 

"Papa?"  She  looked  up  in  surprise.  "He 
went  to  town  yesterday.  Don't  you  re 
member?" 

"Of  course  —  I'd  forgotten.  You're 
alone,  then?"  She  dropped  his  arm  and 
stood  before  him.  He  was  very  pale  now, 
with  the  furrowed  look  of  extreme  physi 
cal  weariness. 

"Denis — are  you  ill  ?  Has  anything  hap 
pened?" 

He    forced    a    smile.    "Yes — but    you 
need  n't  look  so  frightened." 
[12] 


SANCTUARY 

She  drew  a  deep  breath  of  reassurance. 
He  was  safe,  after  all!  And  all  else,  for  a 
moment,  seemed  to  swing  below  the  rim 
of  her  world. 

"Your  mother — ?"  she  then  said,  with 
a  fresh  start  of  fear. 

"It 's  not  my  mother."  They  had  reached 
the  terrace,  and  he  moved  toward  the  house. 
"Let  us  go  indoors.  There  's  such  a  beastly 
glare  out  here." 

He  seemed  to  find  relief  in  the  cool  ob 
scurity  of  the  drawing-room,  where,  after 
the  brightness  of  the  afternoon  light,  their 
faces  were  almost  indistinguishable  to  each 
other.  She  sat  down,  and  he  moved  a  few 
paces  away.  Before  the  writing-table  he 
paused  to  look  at  the  neatly  sorted  heaps 
of  wedding-cards. 

"They  are  to  be  sent  out  to-morrow?" 

"Yes." 

He  turned  back  and  stood  before  her. 

"It's  about  the  woman,"  he  began  ab- 
t  13  ] 


SANCTUARY 

ruptly — "the  woman  who  pretended  to  be 
Arthur's  wife." 

Kate  started  as  at  the  clutch  of  an  un 
acknowledged  fear. 

"She  was  his  wife,  then?" 

Peyton  made  an  impatient  movement 
of  negation.  "If  she  was,  why  didn't  she 
prove  it?  She  hadn't  a  shred  of  evidence. 
The  courts  rejected  her  appeal." 

"Well,  then— ?" 

"Well,  she 's  dead."  He  paused,  and  the 
next  words  came  with  difficulty.  "She  and 
the  child." 

"The  child?  There  was  a  child?" 

"Yes." 

Kate  started  up  and  then  sank  down. 
These  were  not  things  about  which  young 
girls  were  told.  The  confused  sense  of  hor 
ror  had  been  nothing  to  this  first  sharp 
edge  of  fact. 

"And  both  are  dead?" 

"Yes." 

[14] 


SANCTUARY 

"How  do  you  know?  My  father  said 
she  had  gone  away  —  gone  back  to  the 
West—" 

"So  we  thought.  But  this  morning  we 
found  her." 

"Found  her?" 

He  motioned  toward  the  window.  "Out 
there  —  in  the  lake." 

"Both?" 

"Both." 

She  drooped  before  him  shudderingly, 
her  eyes  hidden,  as  though  to  exclude  the 
vision.  "She  had  drowned  herself?" 

"Yes." 

"Oh,  poor  thing  —  poor  thing!" 

They  paused  awhile,  the  minutes  delv 
ing  an  abyss  between  them  till  he  threw  a 
few  irrelevant  words  across  the  silence. 

"One  of  the  gardeners  found  them." 

"Poor  thing!" 

"It  was  sufficiently  horrible." 

"Horrible  —  oh!"  She  had  swung  round 
[15] 


SANCTUARY 

again  to  her  pole.  "Poor  Denis!  You  were 
not  there — you  didn't  have  to — ?" 

"I  had  to  see  her."  She  felt  the  instant 
relief  in  his  voice.  He  could  talk  now,  could 
distend  his  nerves  in  the  warm  air  of  her 
sympathy.  "I  had  to  identify  her."  He  rose 
nervously  and  began  to  pace  the  room. 
"It 's  knocked  the  wind  out  of  me.  I — my 
God!  I  couldn't  foresee  it,  could  I?"  He 
halted  before  her  with  outstretched  hands 
of  argument.  "I  did  all  I  could — it's  not 
my  fault,  is  it?" 

"Your  fault?  Denis!" 

"She  wouldn't  take  the  money — "  He 
broke  off,  checked  by  her  awakened  glance. 

"The  money?  What  money?"  Her  face 
changed,  hardening  as  his  relaxed.  "Had 
you  offered  her  money  to  give  up  the  case  ? " 

He  stared  a  moment,  and  then  dismissed 
the  implication  with  a  laugh. 

"No — no;  after  the  case  was  decided 
against  her.  She  seemed  hard  up,  and  I 
[  16  J 


SANCTUARY 
sent  Hinton  to  her  with  a  cheque." 

"And  she  refused  it?" 

"Yes." 

"What  did  she  say?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know — the  usual  thing. 
That  she  'd  only  wanted  to  prove  she  was 
his  wife — on  the  child's  account.  That 
she  'd  never  wanted  his  money.  Hinton  said 
she  was  very  quiet — not  in  the  least  ex 
cited — but  she  sent  back  the  cheque." 

Kate  sat  motionless,  her  head  bent,  her 
hands  clasped  about  her  knees.  She  no 
longer  looked  at  Peyton. 

"Could  there  have  been  a  mistake?"  she 
asked  slowly. 

"A  mistake?" 

She  raised  her  head  now,  and  fixed  her 
eyes  on  his,  with  a  strange  insistence  of 
observation.  "Could  they  have  been  mar 
ried?" 

"The  courts  didn't  think  so." 

"Could  the  courts  have  been  mistaken?" 
[17] 


SANCTUARY 

He  started  up  again,  and  threw  himself 
into  another  chair.  "  Good  God,  Kate !  We 
gave  her  every  chance  to  prove  her  case — 
why  did  n't  she  do  it  ?  You  don't  know  what 
you're  talking  about — such  things  are  kept 
from  girls.  Why,  whenever  a  man  of  Ar 
thur's  kind  dies,  such — such  women  turn 
up.  There  are  lawyers  who  live  on  such 
jobs — ask  your  father  about  it.  Of  course, 
this  woman  expected  to  be  bought  off — " 

"  But  if  she  would  n't  take  your  money  ? " 

"She  expected  a  big  sum,  I  mean,  to 
drop  the  case.  When  she  found  we  meant 
to  fight  it,  she  saw  the  game  was  up.  I  sup 
pose  it  was  her  last  throw,  and  she  was 
desperate ;  we  don't  know  how  many  times 
she  may  have  been  through  the  same  thing 
before.  That  kind  of  woman  is  always  trying 
to  make  money  out  of  the  heirs  of  any  man 
who — who  has — been  about  with  them." 

Kate  received  this  in  silence.  She  had  a 
sense  of  walking  along  a  narrow  ledge  of 
[18] 


SANCTUARY 

consciousness  above  a  sheer  hallucinating 
depth  into  which  she  dared  not  look.  But 
the  depth  drew  her,  and  she  plunged  one 
terrified  glance  into  it. 

"But  the  child — the  child  was  Ar 
thur's?" 

Peyton  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "There 
again — how  can  we  tell  ?  Why,  I  don't  sup 
pose  the  woman  herself — I  wish  to  heaven 
your  father  were  here  to  explain ! " 

She  rose  and  crossed  over  to  him,  laying 
her  hands  on  his  shoulders  with  a  gesture 
almost  maternal. 

"Don't  let  us  talk  of  it,"  she  said.  "You 
did  all  you  could.  Think  what  a  comfort 
you  were  to  poor  Arthur." 

He  let  her  hands  lie  where  she  had  placed 
them,  without  response  or  resistance. 

"I  tried — I  tried  hard  to  keep  him 
straight!" 

"We  all  know  that — every  one  knows 
it.  And  we  know  how  grateful  he  was — 
[19] 


SANCTUARY 

what  a  difference  it  made  to  him  in  the  end. 
It  would  have  been  dreadful  to  think  of 
his  dying  out  there  alone." 

She  drew  him  down  on  a  sofa  and  seated 
herself  by  his  side.  A  deep  lassitude  was 
upon  him,  and  the  hand  she  had  possessed 
herself  of  lay  in  her  hold  inert. 

"  It  was  splendid  of  you  to  travel  day  and 
night  as  you  did.  And  then  that  dreadful 
week  before  he  died !  But  for  you  he  would 
have  died  alone  among  strangers." 

He  sat  silent,  his  head  dropping  forward, 
his  eyes  fixed.  "Among  strangers,"  he  re 
peated  absently. 

She  looked  up,  as  if  struck  by  a  sudden 
thought.  "That  poor  woman — did  you 
ever  see  her  while  you  were  out  there?" 

He  drew  his  hand  away  and  gathered 
his  brows  together  as  if  in  an  effort  of  re 
membrance. 

"I  saw  her — oh,  yes,  I  saw  her."  He 
pushed  the  tumbled  hair  from  his  forehead 
[  20  ] 


SANCTUARY 

and  stood  up.  "Let  us  go  out,"  he  said. 
"My  head  is  in  a  fog.  I  want  to  get  away 
from  it  all." 

A  wave  of  compunction  drew  her  to  her 
feet. 

"It  was  my  fault!  I  ought  not  to  have 
asked  so  many  questions."  She  turned  and 
rang  the  bell.  "I'll  order  the  ponies — we 
shall  have  time  for  a  drive  before  sunset." 


IT 


WITH  the  sunset  in  their  faces  they  swept 
through  the  keen-scented  autumn  air  at 
the  swiftest  pace  of  Kate's  ponies.  She 
had  given  the  reins  to  Peyton,  and  he  had 
turned  the  horses'  heads  away  from  the 
lake,  rising  by  woody  upland  lanes  to  the 
high  pastures  which  still  held  the  sunlight. 
The  horses  were  fresh  enough  to  claim  his 
undivided  attention,  and  he  drove  in  si 
lence,  his  smooth  fair  profile  turned  to  his 
[21  ] 


SANCTUARY 

companion,  who  sat  silent  also. 

Kate  Orme  was  engaged  in  one  of  those 
rapid  mental  excursions  which  were  forever 
sweeping  her  from  the  straight  path  of  the 
actual  into  uncharted  regions  of  conjecture. 
Her  survey  of  life  had  always  been  marked 
by  the  tendency  to  seek  out  ultimate  rela 
tions,  to  extend  her  researches  to  the  limit 
/of  her  imaginative  experience.  But  hith 
erto  she  had  been  like  some  young  captive 
brought  up  in  a  windowless  palace  whose 
painted  walls  she  takes  for  the  actual  world. 
Now  the  palace  had  been  shaken  to  its  base, 
and  through  a  cleft  in  the  walls  she  looked 
out  upon  life.  For  the  first  moment  all 
was  indistinguishable  blackness;  then  she 
began  to  detect  vague  shapes  and  confused 
gestures  in  the  depths.  There  were  people 
below  there,  men  like  Denis,  girls  like  her 
self — for  under  the  unlikeness  she  felt  the 
strange  affinity — all  struggling  in  that  aw 
ful  coil  of  moral  darkness,  with  agonized 

r  22  ] 


SANCTUARY 

hands  reaching  up  for  rescue.  Her  heart 
shrank  from  the  horror  of  it,  and  then,  in  a 
passion  of  pity,  drew  back  to  the  edge  of 
the  abyss.  Suddenly  her  eyes  turned  toward 
Denis.  His  face  was  grave,  but  less  dis 
turbed.  And  men  knew  about  these  things ! 
They  carried  this  abyss  in  their  bosoms, 
and  went  about  smiling,  and  sat  at  the  feet 
of  innocence.  Could  it  be  that  Denis- 
Denis  even —  Ah,  no!  She  remembered 
what  he  had  been  to  poor  Arthur ;  she  un 
derstood,  now,  the  vague  allusions  to  what 
he  had  tried  to  do  for  his  brother.  He  had 
seen  Arthur  down  there,  in  that  coiling 
blackness,  and  had  leaned  over  and  tried 
to  drag  him  out.  But  Arthur  was  too  deep 
down,  and  his  arms  were  interlocked  with 
other  arms — they  had  dragged  each  other 
deeper,  poor  souls,  like  drowning  people 
who  fight  together  in  the  waves !  Kate's  vis 
ualizing  habit  gave  a  hateful  precision  and 
persistency  to  the  image  she  had  evoked 
[23] 


SANCTUARY 

— she  could  not  rid  herself  of  the  vision  of 
anguished  shapes  striving  together  in  the 
darkness.  The  horror  of  it  took  her  by  the 
throat — she  drew  a  choking  breath,  and 
felt  the  tears  on  her  face. 

Peyton  turned  to  her.  The  horses  were 
climbing  a  hill,  and  his  attention  had 
strayed  from  them. 

"This  has  done  me  good,"  he  began ;  but 
as  he  looked  his  voice  changed.  "Kate! 
What  is  it?  Why  are  you  crying?  Oh,  for 
God's  sake,  don't  f"  he  ended,  his  hand  clos 
ing  on  her  wrist. 

She  steadied  herself  and  raised  her  eyes 
to  his. 

"I — I  could  n't  help  it,"  she  stammered, 
struggling  in  the  sudden  release  of  her  pent 
compassion.  "It  seems  so  awful  that  we 
should  stand  so  close  to  this  horror — that 
it  might  have  been  you  who— 

"I  who — what  on  earth  do  you  mean?" 
he  broke  in  stridently. 
[•*•] 


SANCTUARY 

"  Oh,  don't  you  see  ?  I  found  myself  ex 
ulting  that  you  and  I  were  so  far  from  it 
— above  it — safe  in  ourselves  and  each 
other — and  then  the  other  feeling  came — 
the  sense  of  selfishness,  of  going  by  on  the 
other  side;  and  I  tried  to  realize  that  it 
might  have  been  you  and  I  who — who  were 
down  there  in  the  night  and  the  flood— 

Peyton  let  the  whip  fall  on  the  ponies' 
flanks.  "Upon  my  soul,"  he  said  with  a 
laugh,  "you  must  have  a  nice  opinion  of 
both  of  us." 

The  words  fell  chillingly  on  the  blaze  of 
her  self-immolation.  Would  she  never  learn 
to  remember  that  Denis  was  incapable  of 
mounting  such  hypothetical  pyres?  He 
might  be  as  alive  as  herself  to  the  direct 
demands  of  duty,  but  of  its  imaginative 
claims  he  was  robustly  unconscious.  The 
thought  brought  a  wholesome  reaction  of 
thankfulness. 

"Ah,  well,"  she  said,  the  sunset  dilating 
[25] 


SANCTUARY 

through  her  tears,  "don't  you  see  that  I 
can  bear  to  think  such  things  only  because 
they  're  impossibilities  ?  It 's  easy  to  look 
over  into  the  depths  if  one  has  a  rampart 
to  lean  on.  What  I  most  pity  poor  Arthur 
for  is  that,  instead  of  that  woman  lying 
there,  so  dreadfully  dead,  there  might  have 
been  a  girl  like  me,  so  exquisitely  alive  be 
cause  of  him ;  but  it  seems  cruel,  does  n't 
it,  to  let  what  he  was  not  add  ever  so  little 
to  the  value  of  what  you  are?  To  let  him 
contribute  ever  so  little  to  my  happiness 
by  the  difference  there  is  between  you?" 

She  was  conscious,  as  she  spoke,  of  stray 
ing  again  beyond  his  reach,  through  intri 
cacies  of  sensation  new  even  to  her  ex 
ploring  susceptibilities.  A  happy  literalness 
usually  enabled  him  to  strike  a  short  cut 
through  such  labyrinths,  and  rejoin  her 
smiling  on  the  other  side ;  but  now  she  be 
came  wonderingly  aware  that  he  had  been 
caught  in  the  thick  of  her  hypothesis. 
[26] 


SANCTUARY 

"  It 's  the  difference  that  makes  you  care 
for  me,  then?"  he  broke  out,  with  a  kind 
of  violence  which  seemed  to  renew  his 
clutch  on  her  wrist. 

"The  difference?" 

He  lashed  the  ponies  again,  so  sharply 
that  a  murmur  escaped  her,  and  he  drew 
them  up,  quivering,  with  an  inconsequent 
"Steady,  boys,"  at  which  their  back-laid 
ears  protested. 

"  It 's  because  I  'm  moral  and  respectable, 
and  all  that,  that  you  're  fond  of  me,"  he 
went  on;  "you  're — you  're  simply  in  love 
with  my  virtues.  You  couldn't  imagine 
caring  if  I  were  down  there  in  the  ditch, 
as  you  say,  with  Arthur?" 

The  question  fell  on  a  silence  which 
seemed  to  deepen  suddenly  within  herself. 
Every  thought  hung  bated  on  the  sense 
that  something  was  coming :  her  whole  con 
sciousness  became  a  void  to  receive  it. 

"Denis!"  she  cried. 

[27] 


SANCTUARY 

He  turned  on  her  almost  savagely.  "I 
don't  want  your  pity,  you  know,"  he  burst 
out.  "You  can  keep  that  for  Arthur.  I  had 
an  idea  women  loved  men  for  themselves — 
through  everything,  I  mean.  But  I  wouldn't 
steal  your  love — I  don't  want  it  on  false 
pretenses,  you  understand.  Go  and  look  into 
other  men's  lives,  that 's  all  I  ask  of  you. 
I  slipped  into  it — it  was  just  a  case  of 
holding  my  tongue  when  I  ought  to  have 
spoken — but  I  —  I — for  God's  sake,  don't 
sit  there  staring!  I  suppose  you've  seen 
ah1  along  that  I  knew  he  was  married  to 
the  woman." 


in 

THE  housekeeper's  reminding  her  that  Mr. 
Orme  would  be  at  home  the  next  day  for 
dinner,  and  did  she  think  he  would  like  the 
venison  with  claret  sauce  or  jelly,  roused 
Kate  to  the  first  consciousness  of  her  sur- 
[28] 


SANCTUARY 

roundings.  Her  father  would  return  on  the 
morrow :  he  would  give  to  the  dressing  of 
the  venison  such  minute  consideration  as, 
in  his  opinion,  every  detail  affecting  his 
comfort  or  convenience  quite  obviously 
merited.  And  if  it  were  not  the  venison  it 
would  be  something  else ;  if  it  were  not  the 
housekeeper  it  would  be  Mr.  Orme,  charged 
with  the  results  of  a  conference  with  his 
agent,  a  committee-meeting  at  his  club, 
or  any  of  the  other  incidents  which,  by 
happening  to  himself,  became  events.  Kate 
found  herself  caught  in  the  inexorable  con 
tinuity  of  life,  found  herself  gazing  over  a 
scene  of  ruin  lit  up  by  the  punctual  recur 
rence  of  habit  as  nature's  calm  stare  lights 
the  morrow  of  a  whirlwind. 

Life  was  going  on,  then,  and  dragging 
her  at  its  wheels.  She  could  neither  check 
its  rush  nor  wrench  loose  from  it  and  drop 
out — oh,  how  blessedly! — into  darkness 
and  cessation.  She  must  go  bounding  on, 
[29] 


SANCTUARY 

racked,  broken,  but  alive  in  every  fibre. 
The  most  she  could  hope  was  a  few  hours' 
respite,  not  from  her  own  terrors,  but  from 
the  pressure  of  outward  claims :  the  midday 
halt,  during  which  the  victim  is  unbound 
while  his  torturers  rest  from  their  efforts. 
Till  her  father's  return  she  would  have  the 
house  to  herself,  and,  the  question  of  the 
venison  despatched,  could  give  herself  to 
long  lonely  pacings  of  the  empty  rooms,  and 
shuddering  subsidences  upon  her  pillow. 

Her  first  impulse,  as  the  mist  cleared 
from  her  brain,  was  the  habitual  one  of 
reaching  out  for  ultimate  relations.  She 
wanted  to  know  the  worst ;  and  for  her,  as 
she  saw  in  a  flash,  the  worst  of  it  was  the 
core  of  fatality  in  what  had  happened.  She 
shrank  from  her  own  way  of  putting  it— 
nor  was  it  even  figuratively  true  that  she 
had  ever  felt,  under  her  faith  in  Denis,  any 
such  doubt  as  the  perception  implied.  But 
that  was  merely  because  her  imagination 
[80] 


SANCTUARY 

had  never  put  him  to  the  test.  She  was  fond 
of  exposing  herself  to  hypothetical  ordeals, 
but  somehow  she  had  never  carried  Denis 
with  her  on  these  adventures.  What  she 
saw  now  was  that,  in  a  world  of  strangeness, 
he  remained  the  object  least  strange  to  her. 
She  was  not  in  the  tragic  case  of  the  girl 
who  suddenly  sees  her  lover  unmasked.  No 
mask  had  dropped  from  Denis's  face:  the 
pink  shades  had  simply  been  lifted  from 
the  lamps,  and  she  saw  him  for  the  first 
time  in  an  unmitigated  glare. 

Such  exposure  does  not  alter  the  fea 
tures,  but  it  lays  an  ugly  emphasis  on  the 
most  charming  lines,  pushing  the  smile  to 
a  grin,  the  curve  of  good-nature  to  the 
droop  of  slackness.  And  it  was  precisely 
into  the  flagging  lines  of  extreme  weak- 
ness  that  Denis's  graceful  contour  flowed. 
In  the  terrible  talk  which  had  followed  his 
avowal,  and  wherein  every  word  flashed  a 
light  on  his  moral  processes,  she  had  been 
[31  ] 


SANCTUARY 

less  startled  by  what  he  had  done  than 
by  the  way  in  which  his  conscience  had 
already  become  a  passive  surface  for  the 
channelling  of  consequences.  He  was  like 
a  child  who  has  put  a  match  to  the  cur 
tains,  and  stands  agape  at  the  blaze.  It  was 
horribly  naughty  to  put  the  match — but 
beyond  that  the  child's  responsibility  did 
not  extend.  In  this  business  of  Arthur's, 
where  all  had  been  wrong  from  the  begin 
ning — where  self-defence  might  well  find 
a  plea  for  its  casuistries  in  the  absence  of 
a  definite  right  to  be  measured  by — it  had 
been  easy,  after  the  first  slip,  to  drop  a  lit 
tle  lower  with  each  struggle.  The  woman 
— oh,  the  woman  was — well,  of  the  kind 
who  prey  on  such  men.  Arthur,  out  there, 
at  his  lowest  ebb,  had  drifted  into  living 
with  her  as  a  man  drifts  into  drink  or 
opium.  He  knew  what  she  was — he  knew 
where  she  had  come  from.  But  he  had 
fallen  ill,  and  she  had  nursed  him — nursed 
[32] 


SANCTUARY 

him  devotedly,  of  course.  That  was  her 
chance,  and  she  knew  it.  Before  he  was  out 
of  the  fever  she  had  the  noose  around  him 
— he  came  to  and  found  himself  married. 
Such  cases  were  common  enough — if  the 
man  recovered  he  bought  off  the  woman 
and  got  a  divorce.  It  was  all  a  part  of  the 
business — the  marriage,  the  bribe,  the  di 
vorce.  Some  of  those  women  made  a  big 
income  out  of  it — they  were  married  and 
divorced  once  a  year.  If  Arthur  had  only 
got  well — but,  instead,  he  had  a  relapse 
and  died.  And  there  was  the  woman,  made 
his  widow  by  mischance  as  it  were,  with 
her  child  on  her  arm — whose  child? — and 
a  scoundrelly  black-mailing  lawyer  to  work 
up  her  case  for  her.  Her  claim  was  clear 
enough — the  right  of  dower,  a  third  of  his 
estate.  But  if  he  had  never  meant  to  marry 
her?  If  he  had  been  trapped  as  patently 
as  a  rustic  fleeced  in  a  gambling-hell?  Ar 
thur,  in  his  last  hours,  had  confessed  to  the 
[33] 


SANCTUARY 

marriage,  but  had  also  acknowledged  its 
folly.  And  after  his  death,  when  Denis 
came  to  look  about  him  and  make  inqui 
ries,  he  found  that  the  witnesses,  if  there 
had  been  any,  were  dispersed  and  undis- 
coverable.  The  whole  question  hinged  on 
Arthur's  statement  to  his  brother.  Suppress 
that  statement,  and  the  claim  vanished, 
and  with  it  the  scandal,  the  humiliation, 
the  life-long  burden  of  the  woman  and 
child  dragging  the  name  of  Peyton  through 
heaven  knew  what  depths.  He  had  thought 
of  that  first,  Denis  swore,  rather  thart  of 
the  money.  The  money,  of  course,  had 
made  a  difference, — he  was  too  honest  not 
to  own  it — but  not  till  afterward,  he  de 
clared — would  have  declared  on  his  honour, 
but  that  the  word  tripped  him  up,  and  sent 
a  flush  to  his  forehead. 

Thus,  in  broken  phrases,  he  flung  his  de 
fence  at  her:  a  defence  improvised,  pieced 
together  as  he  went  along,  to  mask  the 
[34] 


SANCTUARY 

crude  instinctiveness  of  his  act.  For  with 
increasing  clearness  Kate  saw,  as  she  lis 
tened,  that  there  had  been  no  real  struggle 
in  his  mind;  that,  but  for  the  grim  logic  of 
chance,  he  might  never  have  felt  the  need 
of  any  justification.  If  the  woman,  after 
the  manner  of  such  baffled  huntresses,  had 
wandered  off  in  search  of  fresh  prey,  he 
might,  quite  sincerely,  have  congratulated 
himself  on  having  saved  a  decent  name 
and  an  honest  fortune  from  her  talons.  It 
was  the  price  she  had  paid  to  establish 
her  claim  that  for  the  first  time  brought 
him  to  a  startled  sense  of  its  justice.  His 
conscience  responded  only  to  the  concrete 
pressure  of  facts. 

It  was  with  the  anguish  of  this  discov 
ery  that  Kate  Orme  locked  herself  in  at 
the  end  of  their  talk.  How  the  talk  had 
ended,  how  at  length  she  had  got  him  from 
the  room  and  the  house,  she  recalled  but 
confusedly.  The  tragedy  of  the  woman's 
[35  ] 


SANCTUARY 

death,  and  of  his  own  share  in  it,  were  as 
nothing  in  the  disaster  of  his  bright  irre- 
claimableness.  Once,  when  she  had  cried 
out,  "You  would  have  married  me  and 
said  nothing,"  and  he  groaned  back,  "But 
I  have  told  you,"  she  felt  like  a  trainer  with 
a  lash  above  some  bewildered  animal. 

But  she  persisted  savagely.  "You  told 
me  because  you  had  to ;  because  your  nerves 
gave  way;  because  you  knew  it  couldn't 
hurt  you  to  tell."  The  perplexed  appeal  of 
his  gaze  had  almost  checked  her.  "You  told 
me  because  it  was  a  relief;  but  nothing  will 
really  relieve  you — nothing  will  really  help 
you — till  you  have  told  some  one  who — 
who  will  hurt  you." 

"Who  will  hurt  me— ?" 

"Till  you  have  told  the  truth  as — as 
openly  as  you  lied." 

He  started  up,  ghastly  with  fear.  "I 
don't  understand  you." 

"You  must  confess,  then — publicly — 
[36] 


SANCTUARY 

openly — you  must  go  to  the  judge.  I  don't 
know  how  it 's  done." 

"To  the  judge?  When  they're  both 
dead?  When  everything  is  at  an  end? 
What  good  could  that  do?"  he  groaned. 

"Everything  is  not  at  an  end  for  you  — 
everything  is  just  beginning.  You  must 
clear  yourself  of  this  guilt;  and  there  is 
only  one  way — to  confess  it.  And  you 
must  give  back  the  money." 

This  seemed  to  strike  him  as  conclusive 
proof  of  her  irrelevance. "  I  wish  I  had  never 
heard  of  the  money!  But  to  whom  would 
you  have  me  give  it  back?  I  tell  you  she 
was  a  waif  out  of  the  gutter.  I  don't  believe 
any  one  knew  her  real  name — I  don't  be 
lieve  she  had  one." 

"She  must  have  had  a  mother  and  fa 
ther." 

"Am  I  to  devote  my  life  to  hunting  for 
them  through  the  slums  of  California  ?  And 
how  shall  I  know  when  I  have  found  them  ? 
[37] 


SANCTUARY 

It 's  impossible  to  make  you  understand.  I 
did  wrong — I  did  horribly  wrong — but 
that  is  not  the  way  to  repair  it." 

"What  is,  then?" 

He  paused,  a  little  askance  at  the  ques 
tion.  "To  do  better — to  do  my  best,"  he 
•   said,  with  a  sudden  flourish  of  firmness. "  To 
take  warning  by  this  dreadful— 

"Oh,  be  silent,"  she  cried  out,  and  hid 
her  face.  He  looked  at  her  hopelessly. 

At  last  he  said :  "  I  don't  know  what  good 
it  can  do  to  go  on  talking.  I  have  only  one 
more  thing  to  say.  Of  course  you  know  that 
you  are  free." 

He  spoke  simply,  with  a  sudden  return 
to  his  old  voice  and  accent,  at  which  she 
weakened  as  under  a  caress.  She  lifted  her 
head  and  gazed  at  him.  "Am  I?"  she  said 
musingly. 

"Kate!"  burst  from  him;  but  she  raised 
a  silencing  hand. 

"It  seems  to  me,"  she  said,  "that  I  am 
[38] 


SANCTUARY 

imprisoned — imprisoned  with  you  in  this 
dreadful  thing.  First  I  must  help  you  to  get 
out — then  it  will  be  time  enough  to  think 
of  myself." 

His  face  fell  and  he  stammered :  "I  don't 
understand  you." 

"I  can't  say  what  I  shall  do — or  how  I 
shall  feel — till  I  know  what  you  are  going 
to  do  and  feel." 

"You  must  see  how  I  feel — that  I  'm  half 
dead  with  it." 

"Yes— but  that  is  only  half." 

He  turned  this  over  for  a  perceptible 
space  of  time  before  asking  slowly:  "You 
mean  that  you  '11  give  me  up,  if  I  don't  do 
this  crazy  thing  you  propose?" 

She  paused  in  turn.  "No,"  she  said;  "I 
don't  want  to  bribe  you.  You  must  feel  the 
need  of  it  yourself." 

"The  need  of  proclaiming  this  thing 
publicly?" 

"Yes." 

[39] 


SANCTUARY 

He  sat  staring  before  him.  "Of  course 
you  realize  what  it  would  mean  ?"  he  began 
at  length. 

"To  you?"  she  returned. 

"I  put  that  aside.  To  others — to  you.  I 
should  go  to  prison." 

"I  suppose  so,"  she  said  simply. 

"You  seem  to  take  it  very  easily — I'm 
afraid  my  mother  would  n't." 

"Your  mother?"  This  produced  the  ef 
fect  he  had  expected. 

"You  had  n't  thought  of  her,  I  suppose? 
It  would  probably  kill  her." 

"It  would  have  killed  her  to  think  that 
you  could  do  what  you  have  done!" 

"It  would  have  made  her  very  unhappy; 
but  there 's  a  difference." 

Yes :  there  was  a  difference ;  a  difference 
which  no  rhetoric  could  disguise.  The  secret 
sin  would  have  made  Mrs.  Peyton  wretched, 
but  it  would  not  have  killed  her.  And  she 
would  have  taken  precisely  Denis's  view  of 
[Mr} 


SANCTUARY 

the  elasticity  of  atonement:  she  would  have 
accepted  private  regrets  as  the  genteel 
equivalent  of  open  expiation.  Kate  could 
even  imagine  her  extracting  a  "  lesson  "  from 
the  providential  fact  that  her  son  had  not 
been  found  out. 

"You  see  it's  not  so  simple,"  he  broke 
out,  with  a  tinge  of  doleful  triumph. 

"No:  it 's  not  simple,"  she  assented. 

"  One  must  think  of  others,"  he  continued, 
gathering  faith  in  his  argument  as  he  saw 
her  reduced  to  acquiescence. 

She  made  no  answer,  and  after  a  moment 
he  rose  to  go.  So  far,  in  retrospect,  she  could 
follow  the  course  of  their  talk ;  but  when, 
in  the  act  of  parting,  argument  lapsed  into 
entreaty,  and  renunciation  into  the  passion 
ate  appeal  to  give  him  at  least  one  more 
hearing,  her  memory  lost  itself  in  a  tumult 
of  pain,  and  she  recalled*  only  that,  when 
the  door  closed  on  him,  he  took  with  him 
her  promise  to  see  him  once  again. 
[41  ] 


SANCTUARY 


IV 


SHE  had  promised  to  see  him  again ;  but  the 
promise  did  not  imply  that  she  had  rejected 
his  offer  of  freedom.  In  the  first  rush  of 
misery  she  had  not  fully  repossessed  herself, 
had  felt  herself  entangled  in  his  fate  by  a 
hundred  meshes  of  association  and  habit; 
but  after  a  sleepless  night  spent  with  the 
thought  of  him — that  dreadful  bridal  of 
their  souls — she  woke  to  a  morrow  in  which 
he  had  no  part.  She  had  not  sought  her 
freedom,  nor  had  he  given  it;  but  a  chasm 
had  opened  at  their  feet,  and  they  found 
themselves  on  different  sides. 

Now  she  was  able  to  scan  the  disaster 
from  the  melancholy  vantage  of  her  inde 
pendence.  She  could  even  draw  a  solace 
from  the  fact  that  she  had  ceased  to  love 
Denis.  It  was  inconceivable  that  an  emo 
tion  so  interwoven  with  every  fibre  of  con 
sciousness  should  cease  as  suddenly  as  the 
[42] 


SANCTUARY 

flow  of  sap  in  an  uprooted  plant;  but  she 
had  never  allowed  herself  to  be  tricked  by 
the  current  phraseology  of  sentiment,  and 
there  were  no  stock  axioms  to  protect  her 
from  the  truth. 

It  was  probably  because  she  had  ceased 
to  love  him  that  she  could  look  forward 
with  a  kind  of  ghastly  composure  to  seeing 
him  again.  She  had  stipulated,  of  course, 
that  the  wedding  should  be  put  off,  but 
she  had  named  no  other  condition  beyond 
asking  for  two  days  to  herself — two  days 
during  which  he  was  not  even  to  write.  She 
wished  to  shut  herself  in  with  her  misery, 
to  accustom  herself  to  it  as  she  had  accus 
tomed  herself  to  happiness.  But  actual  se 
clusion  was  impossible :  the  subtle  reactions 
of  life  almost  at  once  began  to  break  down 
her  defences.  She  could  no  more  have 
her  wretchedness  to  herself  than  any  other 
emotion:  all  the  lives  about  her  were  so 
many  unconscious  factors  in  her  sensations. 
[43] 


SANCTUARY 

She  tried  to  concentrate  herself  on  the 
thought  as  to  how  she  could  best  help 
poor  Denis;  for  love,  in  ebbing,  had  laid 
bare  an  unsuspected  depth  of  pity.  But  she 
found  it  more  and  more  difficult  to  consider 
his  situation  in  the  abstract  light  of  right 
and  wrong.  Open  expiation  still  seemed  to 
her  the  only  possible  way  of  healing;  but 
she  tried  vainly  to  think  of  Mrs.  Peyton  as 
taking  such  a  view.  Yet  Mrs.  Peyton  ought 
at  least  to  know  what  had  happened :  was 
it  not,  in  the  last  resort,  she  who  should 
pronounce  on  her  son's  course  ?  For  a  mo 
ment  Kate  was  fascinated  by  this  evasion 
of  responsibility;  she  had  nearly  decided 
to  tell  Denis  that  he  must  begin  by  con 
fessing  everything  to  his  mother.  But  al 
most  at  once  she  began  to  shrink  from  the 
consequences.  There  was  nothing  she  so 
dreaded  for  him  as  that  any  one  should 
take  a  light  view  of  his  act :  should  turn  its 
irremediableness  into  an  excuse.  And  this, 
[44] 


SANCTUARY 

she  foresaw,  was  what  Mrs.  Peyton  would 
do.  The  first  burst  of  misery  over,  she 
would  envelop  the  whole  situation  in  a 
mist  of  expediency.  Brought  to  the  bar  of 
Kate's  judgment,  she  at  once  revealed  her 
self  incapable  of  higher  action. 

Kate's  conception  of  her  was  still  under 
arraignment  when  the  actual  Mrs.  Peyton 
fluttered  in.  It  was  the  afternoon  of  the 
second  day,  as  the  girl  phrased  it  in  the 
dismal  re-creation  of  her  universe.  She  had 
been  thinking  so  hard  of  Mrs.  Peyton  that 
the  lady's  silvery  insubstantial  presence 
seemed  hardly  more  than  a  projection  of 
the  thought;  but  as  Kate  collected  her 
self,  and  regained  contact  with  the  outer 
world,  her  preoccupation  yielded  to  sur 
prise.  It  was  unusual  for  Mrs.  Peyton  to 
pay  visits.  For  years  she  had  remained  en 
throned  in  a  semi-invalidism  which  pro 
hibited  effort  while  it  did  not  preclude 
diversion;  and  the  girl  at  once  divined  a 
[45] 


SANCTUARY 

special  purpose  in  her  coming. 

Mrs.  Peyton's  traditions  would  not  have 
permitted  any  direct  method  of  attack ;  and 
Kate  had  to  sit  through  the  usual  prelude 
of  ejaculation  and  anecdote.  Presently, 
however,  the  elder  lady's  voice  gathered 
significance,  and  laying  her  hand  on  Kate's 
she  murmured:  "I  have  come  to  talk  to 
you  of  this  sad  affair." 

Kate  began  to  tremble.  Was  it  possible 
that  Denis  had  after  all  spoken?  A  rising 
hope  checked  her  utterance,  and  she  saw 
in  a  flash  that  it  still  lay  with  him  to  re 
gain  his  hold  on  her.  But  Mrs.  Peyton  went 
on  delicately:  "It  has  been  a  great  shock 
to  my  poor  boy.  To  be  brought  in  contact 
with  Arthur's  past  was  in  itself  inexpress 
ibly  painful ;  but  this  last  dreadful  business 
—that  woman's  wicked  act — " 

"Wicked?"  Kate  exclaimed. 

Mrs.  Peyton's  gentle  stare  reproved  her. 
"Surely  religion  teaches  us  that  suicide  is 
[46] 


SANCTUARY 

a  sin?  And  to  murder  her  child!  I  ought 
not  to  speak  to  you  of  such  things,  my 
dear.  No  one  has  ever  mentioned  anything 
so  dreadful  in  my  presence :  my  dear  hus 
band  used  to  screen  me  so  carefully  from 
the  painful  side  of  life.  Where  there  is  so 
much  that  is  beautiful  to  dwell  upon,  we 
should  try  to  ignore  the  existence  of  such 
horrors.  But  nowadays  everything  is  in  the 
papers ;  and  Denis  told  me  he  thought  it 
better  that  you  should  hear  the  news  first 
from  him." 

Kate  nodded  without  speaking. 

"He  felt  how  dreadful  it  was  to  have  to 
tell  you.  But  I  tell  him  he  takes  a  morbid 
view  of  the  case.  Of  course  one  is  shocked 
at  the  woman's  crime — but,  if  one  looks  a 
little  deeper,  how  can  one  help  seeing  that 
it  may  have  been  designed  as  the  means 
of  rescuing  that  poor  child  from  a  life  of 
vice  and  misery?  That  is  the  view  I  want 
Denis  to  take:  I  want  him  to  see  how  all 
[47] 


SANCTUARY 

(the  difficulties  of  life  disappear  when  one 
has  learned  to  look  for  a  divine  purpose  in 
human  sufferings." 

Mrs.  Peyton  rested  a  moment  on  this 
period,  as  an  experienced  climber  pauses 
to  be  overtaken  by  a  less  agile  companion ; 
but  presently  she  became  aware  that  Kate 
was  still  far  below  her,  and  perhaps  needed 
a  stronger  incentive  to  the  ascent. 

"My  dear  child,"  she  said  adroitly,  "I 
said  just  now  that  I  was  sorry  you  had 
been  obliged  to  hear  of  this  sad  affair ;  but 
after  all  it  is  only  you  who  can  avert  its 
consequences." 

Kate  drew  an  eager  breath.  "Its  conse 
quences?"  she  faltered. 

Mrs.  Peyton's  voice  dropped  solemnly. 
"Denis  has  told  me  everything,"  she  said. 

"Everything?" 

"That  you  insist  on  putting  off  the  mar 
riage.  Oh,  my  dear,  I  do  implore  you  to 
reconsider  that!" 

[48] 


SANCTUARY 

Kate  sank  back  with  the  sense  of  hav 
ing  passed  again  into  a  region  of  leaden 
shadow.  "Is  that  all  he  told  you?" 

Mrs.  Peyton  gazed  at  her  with  arch  rail 
lery.  "All?  Isn't  it  everything— to  him?" 

"Did  he  give  you  my  reason,  I  mean?" 

"  He  said  you  felt  that,  after  this  shock 
ing  tragedy,  there  ought,  in  decency,  to  be 
a  delay;  and  I  quite  understand  the  feel 
ing.  It  does  seem  too  unfortunate  that  the 
woman  should  have  chosen  this  particular 
time!  But  you  will  find  as  you  grow  older 
that  life  is  full  of  such  sad  contrasts." 

Kate  felt  herself  slowly  petrifying  under  I 
the  warm  drip  of  Mrs.  Peyton's  platitudes.  | 

"It  seems  to  me,"  the  elder  lady  contin 
ued,  "that  there  is  only  one  point  from 
which  we  ought  to  consider  the  question 
— and  that  is,  its  effect  on  Denis.  But  for 
that  we  ought  to  refuse  to  know  anything 
about  it.  But  it  has  made  my  boy  so  un 
happy.  The  law-suit  was  a  cruel  ordeal  to 
[49] 


SANCTUARY 

him — the  dreadful  notoriety,  the  revela 
tion  of  poor  Arthur's  infirmities.  Denis  is 
as  sensitive  as  a  woman;  it  is  his  unusual 
refinement  of  feeling  that  makes  him  so 
worthy  of  being  loved  by  you.  But  such 
sensitiveness  may  be  carried  to  excess.  He 
ought  not  to  let  this  unhappy  incident 
prey  on  him:  it  shows  a  lack  of  trust  in 
the  divine  ordering  of  things.  That  is  what 
troubles  me:  his  faith  in  life  has  been 
shaken.  And — you  must  forgive  me,  dear 
child — you  will  forgive  me,  I  know — but 
I  can't  help  blaming  you  a  little — " 

Mrs.  Peyton's  accent  converted  the  accu 
sation  into  a  caress,  which  prolonged  itself 
in  a  tremulous  pressure  of  Kate's  hand. 

The  girl  gazed  at  her  blankly.  "You 
blame  me .?" 

"Don't  be  offended,  my  child.  I  only  fear 

that  your  excessive  sympathy  with  Denis, 

your  own  delicacy  of  feeling,  may  have  led 

you  to  encourage  his  morbid  ideas.  He  tells 

[50] 


SANCTUARY 

me  you  were  very  much  shocked — as  you 
naturally  would  be — as  any  girl  must  be 
— I  would  not  have  you  otherwise,  dear 
Kate !  It  is  beautiful  that  you  should  both 
feel  so ;  most  beautiful ;  but  you  know  re 
ligion  teaches  us  not  to  yield  too  much  to 
our  grief.  Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead ;  the 
living  owe  themselves  to  each  other.  And 
what  had  this  wretched  woman  to  do  with 
either  of  you  ?  It  is  a  misfortune  for  Denis 
to  have  been  connected  in  any  way  with 
a  man  of  Arthur  Peyton's  character;  but 
after  all,  poor  Arthur  did  all  he  could  to 
atone  for  the  disgrace  he  brought  on  us, 
by  making  Denis  his  heir — and  I  am  sure 
I  have  no  wish  to  question  the  decrees 
of  Providence."  Mrs.  Peyton  paused  again, 
and  then  softly  absorbed  both  of  Kate's 
hands.  "For  my  part,"  she  continued,  "I 
see  in  it  another  instance  of  the  beautiful 
ordering  of  events.  Just  after  dear  Denis's 
inheritance  has  removed  the  last  obstacle 
[51] 


SANCTUARY 

to  your  marriage,  this  sad  incident  conies 
to  show  how  desperately  he  needs  you,  how 
cruel  it  would  be  to  ask  him  to  defer  his 
happiness." 

She  broke  off,  shaken  out  of  her  habit 
ual  placidity  by  the  abrupt  withdrawal  of 
the  girl's  hands.  Kate  sat  inertly  staring, 
but  no  answer  rose  to  her  lips. 

At  length  Mrs.  Peyton  resumed,  gather 
ing  her  draperies  about  her  with  a  tenta 
tive  hint  of  leave-taking:  "I  may  go  home 
and  tell  him  that  you  will  not  put  off  the 
wedding  ? " 

Kate  was  still  silent,  and  her  visitor 
looked  at  her  with  the  mild  surprise  of  an 
advocate  unaccustomed  to  plead  in  vain. 

"If  your  silence  means  refusal,  my  dear, 
I  think  you  ought  to  realize  the  respon 
sibility  you  assume."  Mrs.  Peyton's  voice 
had  acquired  an  edge  of  righteous  asperity. 
"If  Denis  has  a  fault  it  is  that  he  is  too 
gentle,  too  yielding,  too  readily  influenced 
[52] 


SANCTUARY 

by  those  he  cares  for.  Your  influence  is 
paramount  with  him  now — but  if  you  turn 
from  him  just  when  he  needs  your  help, 
who  can  say  what  the  result  will  be?" 

The  argument,  though  impressively  de 
livered,  was  hardly  of  a  nature  to  carry 
conviction  to  its  hearer ;  but  it  was  perhaps 
for  that  very  reason  that  she  suddenly  and 
unexpectedly  replied  to  it  by  sinking  back 
into  her  seat  with  a  burst  of  tears.  To  Mrs. 
Peyton,  however,  tears  were  the  signal  of 
surrender,  and,  at  Kate's  side  in  an  instant, 
she  hastened  to  temper  her  triumph  with 
magnanimity. 

"Don't  think  I  don't  feel  with  you;  but 
we  must  both  forget  ourselves  for  our  boy's 
sake.  I  told  him  I  should  come  back  with 
your  promise." 

The  arm  she  had  slipped  about  Kate's 
shoulder  fell  back  with  the  girl's  start.  Kate 
had  seen  in  a  flash  what  capital  would  be 
made  of  her  emotion. 

[53] 


SANCTUARY 

"No,  no,  you  misunderstand  me.  I  can 
make  no  promise,"  she  declared. 

The  older  lady  sat  a  moment  irresolute ; 
then  she  restored  her  arm  to  the  shoulder 
from  which  it  had  been  so  abruptly  dis 
placed. 

"My  dear  child,"  she  said,  in  a  tone  of 
tender  confidence,  "if  I  have  misunderstood 
you,  ought  you  not  to  enlighten  me?  You 
asked  me  just  now  if  Denis  had  given  me 
your  reason  for  this  strange  postponement. 
He  gave  me  one  reason,  but  it  seems  hardly 
sufficient  to  explain  your  conduct.  If  there 
is  any  other, — and  I  know  you  well  enough 
to  feel  sure  there  is, — will  you  not  trust 
me  with  it?  If  my  boy  has  been  unhappy 
enough  to  displease  you,  will  you  not  give 
his  mother  the  chance  to  plead  his  cause? 
Remember,  no  one  should  be  condemned 
unheard.  As  Denis's  mother,  I  have  the 
right  to  ask  for  your  reason." 

"My  reason?  My  reason?"  Kate  stam- 
[54] 


SANCTUARY 

mered,  panting  with  the  exhaustion  of  the 
struggle.  Oh,  if  only  Mrs.  Peyton  would 
release  her !  "  If  you  have  the  right  to  know 
it,  why  doesn't  he  tell  you?"  she  cried. 

Mrs.  Peyton  stood  up,  quivering.  "I  will 
go  home  and  ask  him,"  she  said.  "I  will 
tell  him  he  has  your  permission  to  speak." 

She  moved  toward  the  door,  with  the 
nervous  haste  of  a  person  unaccustomed 
to  decisive  action.  But  Kate  sprang  before 
her. 

"No,  no;  don't  ask  him!  I  implore  you 
not  to  ask  him,"  she  cried. 

Mrs.  Peyton  turned  on  her  with  sudden 
authority  of  voice  and  gesture.  "Do  I  un 
derstand  you?"  she  said.  "You  admit  that 
you  have  a  reason  for  putting  off  your 
marriage,  and  yet  you  forbid  me — me, 
Denis's  mother — to  ask  him  what  it  is? 
My  poor  child,  I  need  n't  ask,  for  I  know 
already.  If  he  has  offended  you,  and  you 
refuse  him  the  chance  to  defend  himself,  I 
[55] 


SANCTUARY 

need  n't  look  farther  for  your  reason :  it  is 
simply  that  you  have  ceased  to  love  him." 

Kate  fell  back  from  the  door  which  she 
had  instinctively  barricaded. 

"Perhaps  that  is  it,"  she  murmured,  let 
ting  Mrs.  Peyton  pass. 


MR.  ORME'S  returning  carriage- wheels 
crossed  Mrs.  Peyton's  indignant  flight ;  and 
an  hour  later  Kate,  in  the  bland  candle 
light  of  the  dinner-hour,  sat  listening  with 
practised  fortitude  to  her  father's  comments 
on  the  venison. 

She  had  wondered,  as  she  awaited  him 
in  the  drawing-room,  if  he  would  notice 
any  change  in  her  appearance.  It  seemed 
to  her  that  the  flagellation  of  her  thoughts 
must  have  left  visible  traces.  But  Mr.  Orme 
was  not  a  man  of  subtle  perceptions,  save 
where  his  personal  comfort  was  affected: 
[56] 


SANCTUARY 

though  his  egoism  was  clothed  in  the  finest 
feelers,  he  did  not  suspect  a  similar  surface 
in  others.  His  daughter,  as  part  of  himself, 
came  within  the  normal  range  of  his  solici 
tude  ;  but  she  was  an  outlying  region,  a  sub 
ject  province ;  and  Mr.  Orme's  was  a  highly 
centralized  polity. 

News  of  the  painful  incident — he  often 
used  Mrs.  Peyton's  vocabulary — had 
reached  him  at  his  club,  and  to  some  extent 
disturbed  the  assimilation  of  a  carefully 
ordered  breakfast ;  but  since  then  two  days 
had  passed,  and  it  did  not  take  Mr.  Orme 
forty-eight  hours  to  resign  himself  to  the 
misfortunes  of  others.  It  was  all  very  nasty, 
of  course,  and  he  wished  to  heaven  it  had  n't 
happened  to  any  one  about  to  be  connected 
with  him ;  but  he  viewed  it  with  the  tran 
sient  annoyance  of  a  gentleman  who  has  1 
been  splashed  by  the  mud  of  a  fatal  runa-  !• 
way. 

Mr.  Orme  affected,  under  such  circum- 
[57] 


SANCTUARY 

stances,  a  bluff  and  hearty  stoicism  as  re 
mote  as  possible  from  Mrs.  Peyton's  de 
precating  evasion  of  facts.  It  was  a  bad 
business;  he  was  sorry  Kate  should  have 
been  mixed  up  with  it;  but  she  would  be 
married  soon  now,  and  then  she  would  see 
that  life  wasn't  exactly  a  Sunday-school 
story.  Everybody  was  exposed  to  such  dis 
agreeable  accidents :  he  remembered  a  case 
in  their  own  family — oh,  a  distant  cousin 
whom  Kate  wouldn't  have  heard  of — a 
poor  fellow  who  had  got  entangled  with 
just  such  a  woman,  and  having  (most  pro 
perly)  been  sent  packing  by  his  father,  had 
justified  the  latter 's  course  by  promptly 
forging  his  name — a  very  nasty  affair  alto 
gether;  but  luckily  the  scandal  had  been 
hushed  up,  the  woman  bought  off,  and  the 
prodigal,  after  a  season  of  probation,  safely 
married  to  a  nice  girl  with  a  good  income, 
who  was  told  by  the  family  that  the  doc 
tors  recommended  his  settling  in  California. 
[58] 


SANCTUARY 

Luckily  the  scandal  was  hushed  up:  the 
phrase  blazed  out  against  the  dark  back 
ground  of  Kate's  misery.  That  was  doubt 
less  what  most  people  felt — the  words 
represented  the  consensus  of  respectable 
opinion.  The  best  way  of  repairing  a  fault 
was  to  hide  it:  to  tear  up  the  floor  and 
bury  the  victim  at  night.  Above  all,  no 
coroner  and  no  autopsy ! 

She  began  to  feel  a  strange  interest  in 
her  distant  cousin.  "And  his  wife — did 
she  know  what  he  had  done?" 

Mr.  Orme  stared.  His  moral  pointed, 
he  had  returned  to  the  contemplation  of 
his  own  affairs. 

"His  wife?  Oh,  of  course  not.  The  secret 
has  been  most  admirably  kept;  but  her 
property  was  put  in  trust,  so  she 's  quite 
safe  with  him." 

Her  property!  Kate  wondered  if  her 
faith  in  her  husband  had  also  been  put  in 
trust,  if  her  sensibilities  had  been  protected 
[59] 


SANCTUARY 
from  his  possible  inroads. 

"Do  you  think  it  quite  fair  to  have  de 
ceived  her  in  that  way?" 

Mr.  Orme  gave  her  a  puzzled  glance :  he 
had  no  taste  for  the  by-paths  of  ethical 
conjecture. 

"His  people  wanted  to  give  the  poor 
fellow  another  chance:  they  did  the  best 
they  could  for  him." 

"And — he  has  done  nothing  dishonour 
able  since?" 

"Not  that  I  know  of:  the  last  I  heard 
was  that  they  had  a  little  boy,  and  that 
he  was  quite  happy.  At  that  distance  he 's 
not  likely  to  bother  us,  at  all  events." 

Long  after  Mr.  Orme  had  left  the  topic, 
Kate  remained  lost  in  its  contemplation. 
She  had  begun  to  perceive  that  the  fair  sur 
face  of  life  was  honeycombed  by  a  vast 
system  of  moral  sewage.  Every  respectable 
household  had  its  special  arrangements  for 
the  private  disposal  of  family  scandals ;  it 
[60] 


SANCTUARY 

was  only  among  the  reckless  and  improvi 
dent  that  such  hygienic  precautions  were 
neglected.  Who  was  she  to  pass  judgment 
on  the  merits  of  such  a  system  ?  The  social 
health  must  be  preserved:  the  means  de- 
vised  were  the  result  of  long  experience 
and  the  collective  instinct  of  self-preserva 
tion.  She  had  meant  to  tell  her  father  that 
evening  that  her  marriage  had  been  put 
off;  but  she  now  abstained  from  doing  so, 
not  from  any  doubt  of  Mr.  Orme's  acquies 
cence — he  could  always  be  made  to  feel  the 
force  of  conventional  scruples — but  be 
cause  the  whole  question  sank  into  insig 
nificance  beside  the  larger  issue  which  his 
words  had  raised. 

In  her  own  room,  that  night,  she  passed 
through  that  travail  of  the  soul  of  which 
the  deeper  life  is  born.  Her  first  sense  was 
of  a  great  moral  loneliness — an  isolation 
more  complete,  more  impenetrable,  than 
that  in  which  the  discovery  of  Denis's  act 
[61  ] 


SANCTUARY 

had  plunged  her.  For  she  had  vaguely 
leaned,  then,  on  a  collective  sense  of  justice 
that  should  respond  to  her  own  ideas  of 
right  and  wrong:  she  still  believed  in  the 
logical  correspondence  of  theory  and  prac 
tice.  Now  she  saw  that,  among  those  near 
est  her,  there  was  no  one  who  recognized 
the  moral  need  of  expiation.  She  saw  that 
to  take  her  father  or  Mrs.  Peyton  into  her 
confidence  would  be  but  to  widen  the  circle 
of  sterile  misery  in  which  she  and  Denis 

moved.  At  first  the  aspect  of  life  thus  re- 
* 

vealed  to  her  seemed  simply  mean  and 

' 

base — a  world  where  honour  was  a  pact 
of  silence  between  adroit  accomplices.  The 
network  of  circumstance  had  tightened 
round  her,  and  every  effort  to  escape  drew 
its  meshes  closer.  But  as  her  struggles  sub 
sided  she  felt  the  spiritual  release  which 
comes  with  acceptance :  not  connivance  in 
dishonour,  but  recognition  of  evil.  Out  of 
that  dark  vision  light  was  to  come,  the 
[62] 


SANCTUARY 

shaft  of  cloud  turning  to  the  pillar  of  fire. 
For  here,  at  last,  life  lay  before  her  as  it 
was :  not  brave,  garlanded  and  victorious, 
but  naked,  grovelling  and  diseased,  drag 
ging  its  maimed  limbs  through  the  mud, 
yet  lifting  piteous  hands  to  the  stars.  Love 
itself,  once  throned  aloft  on  an  altar  of 
dreams,  how  it  stole  to  her  now,  storm- 
beaten  and  scarred,  pleading  for  the  shelter 
of  her  breast !  Love,  indeed,  not  in  the  old 
sense  in  which  she  had  conceived  it,  but 
a  graver,  austerer  presence — the  charity 
of  the  mystic  three.  She  thought  she  had 
ceased  to  love  Denis — but  what  had  she 
loved  in  him  but  her  happiness  and  his? 
Their  affection  had  been  the  garden  en 
closed  of  the  Canticles,  where  they  were  to 
walk  forever  in  a  delicate  isolation  of  bliss. 
But  now  love  appeared  to  her  as  something 
more  than  this — something  wider,  deeper, 
more  enduring  than  the  selfish  passion  of 
a  man  and  a  woman.  She  saw  it  in  all  its 
[63] 


SANCTUARY 

far-reaching  issues,  till  the  first  meeting  of 
two  pairs  of  young  eyes  kindled  a  light 
which  might  be  a  high-lifted  beacon  across 
dark  waters  of  humanity. 

All  this  did  not  come  to  her  clearly,  con 
secutively,  but  in  a  series  of  blurred  and 
shifting  images.  Marriage  had  meant  to  her, 
as  it  means  to  girls  brought  up  in  ignorance 
of  life,  simply  the  exquisite  prolongation 
of  wooing.  If  she  had  looked  beyond,  to 
the  vision  of  wider  ties,  it  was  as  a  travel 
ler  gazes  over  a  land  veiled  in  golden  haze, 
and  so  far  distant  that  the  imagination  de 
lays  to  explore  it.  But  now  through  the 
blur  of  sensations  one  image  strangely  per 
sisted — the  image  of  Denis's  child.  Had 
she  ever  before  thought  of  their  having  a 
child?  She  could  not  remember.  She  was 
like  one  who  wakens  from  a  long  fever: 
she  recalled  nothing  of  her  former  self  or 
of  her  former  feelings.  She  knew  only  that 
the  vision  persisted — the  vision  of  the  child 
[64] 


SANCTUARY 

whose  mother  she  was  not  to  be.  It  was 
impossible  that  she  should  marry  Denis — 
her  inmost  soul  rejected  him  .  .  .  but  it  was 
just  because  she  was  not  to  be  the  child's 
mother  that  its  image  followed  her  so  plead 
ingly.  For  she  saw  with  perfect  clearness 
the  inevitable  course  of  events.  Denis  would 
marry  some  one  else — he  was  one  of  the 
men  who  are  fated  to  marry,  and  she  needed 
not  his  mother's  reminder  that  her  aban 
donment  of  him  at  an  emotional  crisis 
would  fling  him  upon  the  first  sympathy 
within  reach.  He  would  marry  a  girl  who 
knew  nothing  of  his  secret — for  Kate  was 
intensely  aware  that  he  would  never  again 
willingly  confess  himself — he  would  marry 
a  girl  who  trusted  him  and  leaned  on  him, 
as  she,  Kate  Orme — the  earlier  Kate  Orme 
— had  done  but  two  days  since !  And  with 
this  deception  between  them  their  child 
would  be  born :  born  to  an  inheritance  of 
secret  weakness,  a  vice  of  the  moral  fibre, 
[65] 


SANCTUARY 

as  it  might  be  born  with  some  hidden  phy 
sical  taint  which  would  destroy  it  before 
the  cause  could  be  detected.  .  . .  Well,  and 
what  of  it  ?  Was  she  to  hold  herself  respon 
sible  ?  Were  not  thousands  of  children  born 
with  some  such  unsuspected  taint  ? . . .  Ah, 
but  if  here  was  one  that  she  could  save? 
What  if  she,  who  had  had  so  exquisite  a 
vision  of  wifehood,  should  reconstruct  from 
its  ruins  this  vision  of  protecting  maternity 
— if  her  love  for  her  lover  should  be,  not 
lost,  but  transformed,  enlarged,  into  this 
passion  of  charity  for  his  race  ?  If  she  might 
expiate  and  redeem  his  fault  by  becoming 
a  refuge  from  its  consequences  ?  Before  this 
strange  extension  of  her  love  all  the  old 
limitations  seemed  to  fall.  Something  had 
cleft  the  surface  of  self,  and  there  welled 
up  the  mysterious  primal  influences,  the 
sacrificial  instinct  of  her  sex,  a  passion  of 
spiritual  motherhood  that  made  her  long 

[66] 


SANCTUARY 

to  fling  herself  between  the  unborn  child 
and  its  fate.  .  .  . 

She  never  knew,  then  or  after,  how  she 
reached  this  mystic  climax  of  effacement; 
she  was  only  conscious,  through  her  an 
guish,  of  that  lift  of  the  heart  which  made 
one  of  the  saints  declare  that  joy  was  the 
inmost  core  of  sorrow.  For  it  was  indeed 
a  kind  of  joy  she  felt,  if  old  names  must 
serve  for  such  new  meanings;  a  surge  of 
liberating  faith  in  life,  the  old  credo  quia 
absurdum  which  is  the  secret  cry  of  all  su 
preme  endeavour.  . 


[67] 


SANCTUARY 
PART    II 


PART     II 

I 

DOES  it  look  nice,  mother?" 
Dick  Peyton  met  her  with  the  ques 
tion  on  the  threshold,  drawing  her  gaily 
into  the  little  square  room,  and  adding, 
with  a  laugh  with  a  blush  in  it :  "  You  know 
she 's  an  uncommonly  noticing  person,  and 
little  things  tell  with  her." 

He  swung  round  on  his  heel  to  follow  his 
mother's  smiling  inspection  of  the  apart 
ment. 

"She  seems  to  have  all  the  qualities," 
Mrs.  Denis  Peyton  remarked,  as  her  cir 
cuit  finally  brought  her  to  the  prettily  ap 
pointed  tea-table. 

"^//,"  he  declared,  taking  the  sting  from 
her  emphasis  by  his  prompt  adoption  of 
it.  Dick  had  always  had  a  wholesome  way 
of  thus  appropriating  to  his  own  use  such 
small  shafts  of  maternal  irony  as  were  now 
[71  ] 


SANCTUARY 

and  then  aimed  at  him. 

Kate  Peyton  laughed  and  loosened  her 
furs. "  It  looks  charmingly,"  she  pronounced, 
ending  her  survey  by  an  approach  to  the 
window,  which  gave,  far  below,  the  oblique 
perspective  of  a  long  side-street  leading  to 
Fifth  Avenue. 

The  high-perched  room  was  Dick  Pey 
ton's  private  office,  a  retreat  partitioned  off 
from  the  larger  enclosure  in  which,  under  a 
north  light  and  on  a  range  of  deal  tables, 
three  or  four  young  draughtsmen  were 
busily  engaged  in  elaborating  his  architec 
tural  projects.  The  outer  door  of  the  office 
bore  the  sign :  Peyton  and  Gill,  Architects; 
but  Gill  was  an  utilitarian  person,  as  unob 
trusive  as  his  name,  who  contented  himself 
with  a  desk  in  the  work-room,  and  left  Dick 
to  lord  it  alone  in  the  small  apartment  to 
which  clients  were  introduced,  and  where 
the  social  part  of  the  business  was  carried 
on. 


SANCTUARY 

It  was  to  serve,  on  this  occasion,  as  the 
scene  of  a  tea  designed,  as  Kate  Peyton  was 
vividly  aware,  to  introduce  a  certain  young 
lady  to  the  scene  of  her  son's  labours.  Mrs. 
Peyton  had  been  hearing  a  great  deal  lately 
about  Clemence  Verney.  Dick  was  natu 
rally  expansive,  and  his  close  intimacy  with 
his  mother — an  intimacy  fostered  by  his 
father's  early  death — if  it  had  suffered  some 
natural  impairment  in  his  school  and  col 
lege  days,  had  of  late  been  revived  by  four 
years  of  comradeship  in  Paris,  where  Mrs. 
Peyton,  in  a  tiny  apartment  of  the  Rue  de 
Varennes,  had  kept  house  for  him  during 
his  course  of  studies  at  the  Beaux  Arts,  j 
There  were  indeed  not  lacking  critics  of 
her  own  sex  who  accused  Kate  Peyton  of 
having  figured  too  largely  in  her  son's  life ; 
of  having  failed  to  efface  herself  at  a  period 
when  it  is  agreed  that  young  men  are  best 
left  free  to  try  conclusions  with  the  world. 
Mrs.  Peyton,  had  she  cared  to  defend  her- 
[73] 


SANCTUARY 

self,  might  have  said  that  Dick,  if  commu 
nicative,  was  not  impressionable,  and  that 
the  closeness  of  texture  which  enabled  him 
to  throw  off  her  sarcasms  preserved  him  also 
from  the  infiltration  of  her  prejudices.  He 
was  certainly  no  knight  of  the  apron-string, 
but  a  seemingly  resolute  and  self-sufficient 
young  man,  whose  romantic  friendship  with 
his  mother  had  merely  served  to  throw  a 
veil  of  suavity  over  the  hard  angles  of  youth. 

But  Mrs.  Peyton's  real  excuse  was  after 
all  one  which  she  would  never  have  given. 
It  was  because  her  intimacy  with  her  son 
was  the  one  need  of  her  life  that  she  had, 
with  infinite  tact  and  discretion,  but  with 
equal  persistency,  clung  to  every  step  of 
his  growth,  dissembling  herself,  adapting 
herself,  rejuvenating  herself,  in  the  passion 
ate  effort  to  be  always  within  reach,  but 
never  in  the  way. 

Denis  Peyton  had  died  after  seven  years 
of  marriage,  when  his  boy  was  barely  six. 


SANCTUARY 

During  those  seven  years  he  had  managed 
to  squander  the  best  part  of  the  fortune  he 
had  inherited  from  his  step -brother ;  so  that, 
at  his  death,  his  widow  and  son  were  left 
with  a  scant  competence.  Mrs.  Peyton,  dur 
ing  her  husband's  life,  had  apparently  made 
no  effort  to  restrain  his  expenditure.  She 
had  even  been  accused,  by  those  judicious 
persons  who  are  always  ready  with  an  esti 
mate  of  their  neighbours'  motives,  of  hav 
ing  encouraged  poor  Denis's  improvidence 
for  the  gratification  of  her  own  ambition. 
She  had  in  fact,  in  the  early  days  of  their 
marriage,  tried  to  launch  him  in  politics, 
and  had  perhaps  drawn  somewhat  heavily 
on  his  funds  in  the  first  heat  of  the  contest; 
but  the  experiment  ending  in  failure,  as 
Denis  Peyton's  experiments  were  apt  to 
end,  she  had  made  no  farther  demands  on 
his  exchequer.  Her  personal  tastes  were  in 
fact  unusually  simple,  but  her  outspoken  in 
difference  to  money  was  not,  in  the  opinion 
[75] 


SANCTUARY 

of  her  critics,  designed  to  act  as  a  check 
upon  her  husband ;  and  it  resulted  in  leav 
ing  her,  at  his  death,  in  straits  from  which 
it  was  impossible  not  to  deduce  a  moral. 

Her  small  means,  and  the  care  of  the 
boy's  education,  served  the  widow  as  a  pre 
text  for  secluding  herself  in  a  socially  re 
mote  suburb,  where  it  was  inferred  that  she 
was  expiating,  on  queer  food  and  in  ready- 
made  boots,  her  rash  defiance  of  fortune. 
Whether  or  not  Mrs.  Peyton's  penance 
took  this  form,  she  hoarded  her  substance 
to  such  good  purpose  that  she  was  not  only 
able  to  give  Dick  the  best  of  schooling,  but 
to  propose,  on  his  leaving  Harvard,  that  he 
should  prolong  his  studies  by  another  four 
years  at  the  Beaux  Arts.  It  had  been  the 
joy  of  her  life  that  her  boy  had  early  shown 
a  marked  bent  for  a  special  line  of  work. 
She  could  not  have  borne  to  see  him  re 
duced  to  a  mere  money -getter,  yet  she  was 
not  sorry  that  their  small  means  forbade 
[76] 


SANCTUARY 

the  cultivation  of  an  ornamental  leisure.  In 
his  college  days  Dick  had  troubled  her  by 
a  superabundance  of  tastes,  a  restless  flit 
ting  from  one  form  of  artistic  expression 
to  another.  Whatever  art  he  enjoyed  he 
wished  to  practise,  and  he  passed  from 
music  to  painting,  from  painting  to  archi 
tecture,  with  an  ease  which  seemed  to  his 
mother  to  indicate  lack  of  purpose  rather 
than  excess  of  talent.  She  had  observed 
that  these  changes  were  usually  due,  not 
to  self-criticism,  but  to  some  external  dis 
couragement.  Any  depreciation  of  his  work 
was  enough  to  convince  him  of  the  useless- 
ness  of  pursuing  that  special  form  of  art, 
and  the  reaction  produced  the  immediate 
conviction  that  he  was  really  destined  to 
shine  in  some  other  line  of  work.  He  had 
thus  swung  from  one  calling  to  another 
till,  at  the  end  of  his  college  career,  his 
mother  took  the  decisive  step  of  trans 
planting  him  to  the  Beaux  Arts,  in  the 
[77] 


SANCTUARY 

hope  that  a  definite  course  of  study,  com 
bined  with  the  stimulus  of  competition, 
might  fix  his  wavering  aptitudes.  The  re 
sult  justified  her  expectation,  and  their  four 
years  in  the  Rue  de  Varennes  yielded  the 
happiest  confirmation  of  her  belief  in  him. 
Dick's  ability  was  recognized  not  only  by 
his  mother,  but  by  his  professors.  He  was 
engrossed  in  his  work,  and  his  first  successes 
developed  his  capacity  for  application.  His 
mother's  only  fear  was  that  praise  was  still 
too  necessary  to  him.  She  was  uncertain 
how  long  his  ambition  would  sustain  him 
in  the  face  of  failure.  He  gave  lavishly 
where  he  was  sure  of  a  return;  but  it  re 
mained  to  be  seen  if  he  were  capable  of 
production  without  recognition.  She  had 
brought  him  up  in  a  wholesome  scorn  of 
material  rewards,  and  nature  seemed,  in 
this  direction,  to  have  seconded  her  train 
ing.  He  was  genuinely  indifferent  to  money, 
and  his  enjoyment  of  beauty  was  of  that 
[78] 


SANCTUARY 

happy  sort  which  does  not  generate  the 
wish  for  possession.  As  long  as  the  inner 
eye  had  food  for  contemplation,  he  cared 
very  little  for  the  deficiencies  in  his  sur 
roundings  ;  or,  it  might  rather  be  said,  he 
felt,  in  the  sum-total  of  beauty  about  him, 
an  ownership  of  appreciation  that  left  him 
free  from  the  fret  of  personal  desire.  Mrs. 
Peyton  had  cultivated  to  excess  this  dis 
regard  of  material  conditions ;  but  she  now 
began  to  ask  herself  whether,  in  so  doing, 
she  had  not  laid  too  great  a  strain  on  a 
temperament  naturally  exalted.  In  guard 
ing  against  other  tendencies  she  had  per 
haps  fostered  in  him  too  exclusively  those 
qualities  which  circumstances  had  brought 
to  an  unusual  development  in  herself.  His 
enthusiasms  and  his  disdains  were  alike  too 
unqualified  for  that  happy  mean  of  char 
acter  which  is  the  best  defence  against 
the  surprises  of  fortune.  If  she  had  taught 
him  to  set  an  exaggerated  value  on  ideal 
[79] 


SANCTUARY 

rewards,  was  not  that  but  a  shifting  of  the 
danger-point  on  which  her  fears  had  always 
hung?  She  trembled  sometimes  to  think 
how  little  love  and  a  lifelong  vigilance  had 
availed  in  the  deflecting  of  inherited  ten 
dencies. 

Her  fears  were  in  a  measure  confirmed 
by  the  first  two  years  of  their  life  in  New 
York,  and  the  opening  of  his  career  as  a 
professional  architect.  Close  on  the  easy 
triumphs  of  his  studentship  there  came 
the  chilling  reaction  of  public  indifference. 
Dick,  on  his  return  from  Paris,  had  formed 
a  partnership  with  an  architect  who  had 
had  several  years  of  practical  training  in  a 
New  York  office ;  but  the  quiet  and  indus 
trious  Gill,  though  he  attracted  to  the  new 
firm  a  few  small  jobs  which  overflowed 
from  the  business  of  his  former  employer, 
was  not  able  to  infect  the  public  with  his 
own  faith  in  Peyton's  talents,  and  it  was 
trying  to  a  genius  who  felt  himself  capable 
[80] 


SANCTUARY 

of  creating  palaces  to  have  to  restrict  his 
efforts  to  the  building  of  suburban  cot 
tages  or  the  planning  of  cheap  alterations 
in  private  houses. 

Mrs.  Peyton  expended  all  the  ingenui 
ties  of  tenderness  in  keeping  up  her  son's 
courage ;  and  she  was  seconded  in  the  task 
by  a  friend  whose  acquaintance  Dick  had 
made  at  the  Beaux  Arts,  and  who,  two 
years  before  the  Peytons,  had  returned  to 
New  York  to  start  on  his  own  career  as 
an  architect.  Paul  Darrow  was  a  young 
man  full  of  crude  seriousness,  who,  after 
a  youth  of  struggling  work  and  study  in 
his  native  northwestern  state,  had  won  a 
scholarship  which  sent  him  abroad  for  a 
course  at  the  Beaux  Arts.  His  two  years 
there  coincided  with  the  first  part  of  Dick's 
residence,  and  Darrow's  gifts  had  at  once 
attracted  the  younger  student.  Dick  was 
unstinted  in  his  admiration  of  rival  talent, 
and  Mrs.  Peyton,  who  was  romantically 
[81  ] 


SANCTUARY 

given  to  the  cultivation  of  such  generosi 
ties,  had  seconded  his  enthusiasm  by  the 
kindest  offers  of  hospitality  to  the  young 
student.  Darrow  thus  became  the  grateful 
frequenter  of  their  little  salon;  and  after 
their  return  to  New  York  the  intimacy  be 
tween  the  young  men  was  renewed,  though 
Mrs.  Peyton  found  it  more  difficult  to  coax 
Dick's  friend  to  her  New  York  drawing- 
room  than  to  the  informal  surroundings  of 
the  Rue  de  Varennes.  There,  no  doubt, 
secluded  and  absorbed  in  her  son's  work, 
she  had  seemed  to  Darrow  almost  a  fellow- 
student;  but  seen  among  her  own  associ 
ates  she  became  once  more  the  woman  of 
fashion,  divided  from  him  by  the  whole 
breadth  of  her  ease  and  his  awkwardness. 
Mrs.  Peyton,  whose  tact  had  divined  the 
cause  of  his  estrangement,  would  not  for 
an  instant  let  it  affect  the  friendship  of  the 
two  young  men.  She  encouraged  Dick  to 
frequent  Darrow,  in  whom  she  divined  a 
[82] 


SANCTUARY 

persistency  of  effort,  an  artistic  self-con 
fidence,  in  curious  contrast  to  his  social 
hesitancies.  The  example  of  his  obstinate 
capacity  for  work  was  just  the  influence 
her  son  needed,  and  if  Darrow  would  not 
come  to  them  she  insisted  that  Dick  must 
seek  him  out,  must  never  let  him  think 
that  any  social  discrepancy  could  affect  a 
friendship  based  on  deeper  things.  Dick, 
who  had  all  the  loyalties,  and  who  took 
an  honest  pride  in  his  friend's  growing  suc 
cess,  needed  no  urging  to  maintain  the  inti 
macy  ;  and  his  copious  reports  of  midnight 
colloquies  in  Darrow's  lodgings  showed 
Mrs.  Peyton  that  she  had  a  strong  ally  in 
her  invisible  friend. 

It  had  been,  therefore,  somewhat  of  a 
shock  to  learn  in  the  course  of  time  that 
Darrow's  influence  was  being  shared,  if 
not  counteracted,  by  that  of  a  young  lady 
in  whose  honour  Dick  was  now  giving 
his  first  professional  tea.  Mrs.  Peyton  had 
[83] 


SANCTUARY 

heard  a  great  deal  about  Miss  Clemence 
Verney,  first  from  the  usual  purveyors  of 
such  information,  and  more  recently  from 
her  son,  who,  probably  divining  that  ru 
mour  had  been  before  him,  adopted  his 
usual  method  of  disarming  his  mother  by 
taking  her  into  his  confidence.  But,  ample 
as  her  information  was,  it  remained  per 
plexing  and  contradictory,  and  even  her 
own  few  meetings  with  the  girl  had  not 
helped  her  to  a  definite  opinion.  Miss  Ver 
ney,  in  conduct  and  ideas,  was  patently  of 
the  "new  school " :  a  young  woman  of  fever 
ish  activities  and  broad-cast  judgments, 
whose  very  versatility  made  her  hard  to 
define.  Mrs.  Peyton  was  shrewd  enough 
to  allow  for  the  accidents  of  environment; 
what  she  wished  to  get  at  was  the  resi 
duum  of  character  beneath  Miss  Verney's 
shifting  surface. 

"It  looks  charmingly,"  Mrs.  Peyton  re 
peated,  giving  a  loosening  touch  to  the 
[84] 


SANCTUARY 

chrysanthemums  in  a  tall  vase  on  her  son's 
desk. 

Dick  laughed,  and  glanced  at  his  watch. 

"They  won't  be  here  for  another  quarter 
of  an  hour.  I  think  I'll  tell  Gill  to  clean 
out  the  work-room  before  they  come." 

"Are  we  to  see  the  drawings  for  the  com 
petition  ? "  his  mother  asked. 

He  shook  his  head  smilingly.  "Can't — 
I  Ve  asked  one  or  two  of  the  Beaux  Arts 
fellows,  you  know;  and  besides,  old  Dar- 
row  's  actually  coming." 

"Impossible!"  Mrs.  Peyton  exclaimed. 

"He  swore  he  would  last  night."  Dick 
laughed  again,  with  a  tinge  of  self-satis 
faction.  "I  Ve  an  idea  he  wants  to  see  Miss 
Verney." 

"Ah,"  his  mother  murmured.  There  was 
a  pause  before  she  added:  "Has  Darrow 
really  gone  in  for  this  competition?" 

"Rather!  I  should  say  so!  He's  simply 
working  himself  to  the  bone." 
[85] 


SANCTUARY 

Mrs.  Peyton  sat  revolving  her  muff  on  a 
meditative  hand ;  at  length  she  said :  "  I  'm 
not  sure  I  think  it  quite  nice  of  him." 

Her  son  halted  before  her  with  an  incred 
ulous  stare.  "Mother!"  he  exclaimed. 

The  rebuke  sent  a  blush  to  her  forehead. 
"  Well — considering  your  friendship — and 
everything." 

"Everything?  What  do  you  mean  by 
everything?  The  fact  that  he  has  more 
ability  than  I  have  and  is  therefore  more 
likely  to  succeed?  The  fact  that  he  needs 
the  money  and  the  success  a  deuced  sight 
more  than  any  of  us?  Is  that  the  reason 
you  think  he  oughtn't  to  have  entered? 
Mother!  I  never  heard  you  say  an  ungen 
erous  thing  before." 

The  blush  deepened  to  crimson,  and  she 
rose  with  a  nervous  laugh.  "It  was  ungen 
erous,"  she  conceded.  "I  suppose  I'm  jeal 
ous  for  you.  I  hate  these  competitions ! " 

Her  son  smiled  reassuringly.  "You 
[86] 


SANCTUARY 

needn't.  I'm  not  afraid:  I  think  I  shall 
pull  it  off  this  time.  In  fact,  Paul 's  the 
only  man  I  'm  afraid  of — I  'm  always  afraid 
of  Paul — but  the  mere  fact  that  he's  in 
the  thing  is  a  tremendous  stimulus." 

His  mother  continued  to  study  him  with 
an  anxious  tenderness.  "  Have  you  worked 
out  the  whole  scheme  ?  Do  you  see  it  yet  ?" 

"Oh,  broadly,  yes.  There's  a  gap  here 
and  there — a  hazy  bit,  rather — it's  the 
hardest  problem  I've  ever  had  to  tackle; 
but  then  it 's  my  biggest  opportunity,  and 
I've  simply  got  to  pull  it  off!" 

Mrs.  Peyton  sat  silent,  considering  his 
flushed  face  and  illumined  eye,  which  were 
rather  those  of  the  victor  nearing  the  goal 
than  of  the  runner  just  beginning  the  race. 
She  remembered  something  that  Darrow 
had  once  said  of  him:  "Dick  always  sees 
the  end  too  soon." 

"You  haven't  too  much  time  left,"  she 
murmured. 

[87] 


SANCTUARY 

"Just  a  week.  But  I  shan't  go  anywhere 
after  this.  I  shall  renounce  the  world."  He 
glanced  smilingly  at  the  festal  tea-table  and 
the  embowered  desk.  "When  I  next  ap 
pear,  it  will  either  be  with  my  heel  on 
Paul's  neck — poor  old  Paul — or  else — 
or  else — being  dragged  lifeless  from  the 
arena ! " 

His  mother  nervously  took  up  the  laugh 
with  which  he  ended.  "Oh,  not  lifeless," 
she  said. 

His  face  clouded.  "Well,  maimed  for 
life,  then,"  he  muttered. 

Mrs.  Peyton  made  no  answer.  She  knew 
how  much  hung  on  the  possibility  of  his 
winning  the  competition  which  for  weeks 
past  had  engrossed  him.  It  was  a  design 
for  the  new  museum  of  sculpture,  for  which 
the  city  had  recently  voted  half  a  million. 
Dick's  taste  ran  naturally  to  the  grandiose, 
and  the  erection  of  public  buildings  had 
always  been  the  object  of  his  ambition. 
[88] 


SANCTUARY 

Here  was  an  unmatched  opportunity,  and 
he  knew  that,  in  a  competition  of  the  kind, 
the  newest  man  had  as  much  chance  of 
success  as  the  firm  of  most  established  repu 
tation,  since  every  competitor  entered  on 
his  own  merits,  the  designs  being  submitted 
to  a  jury  of  architects  who  voted  on  them 
without  knowing  the  names  of  the  con 
testants.  Dick,  characteristically,  was  not 
afraid  of  the  older  firms ;  indeed,  as  he  had 
told  his  mother,  Paul  Darrow  was  the  only 
rival  he  feared.  Mrs.  Peyton  knew  that,  to 
a  certain  point,  self-confidence  was  a  good 
sign ;  but  somehow  her  son's  did  not  strike 
her  as  being  of  the  right  substance — it 
seemed  to  have  no  dimension  but  extent. 
Her  fears  were  complicated  by  a  suspi 
cion  that,  under  his  professional  eagerness 
for  success,  lay  the  knowledge  that  Miss 
Verney's  favour  hung  on  the  victory.  It 
was  that,  perhaps,  which  gave  a  feverish 
touch  to  his  ambition;  and  Mrs.  Peyton, 
[89] 


SANCTUARY 

surveying  the  future  from  the  height  of 
her  maternal  apprehensions,  divined  that 
the  situation  depended  mainly  on  the  girl's 
view  of  it.  She  would  have  given  a  great 
deal  to  know  Clemence  Verney's  concep 
tion  of  success. 


ii 


Miss  VERNE  Y,  when  she  presently  appeared, 
in  the  wake  of  the  impersonal  and  exclam 
atory  young  married  woman  who  served  as 
a  background  to  her  vivid  outline,  seemed 
competent  to  impart  at  short  notice  any 
information  required  of  her.  She  had  never 
struck  Mrs.  Peyton  as  more  alert  and  effi 
cient.  A  melting  grace  of  line  and  colour 
tempered  her  edges  with  the  charming  haze 
of  youth ;  but  it  occurred  to  her  critic  that 
she  might  emerge  from  this  morning  mist 
as  a  dry  and  metallic  old  woman. 

If  Miss  Verney  suspected  a  personal  ap 
plication  in  Dick's  hospitality,  it  did  not 
[90] 


SANCTUARY 

call  forth  in  her  the  usual  tokens  of  self- 
consciousness.  Her  manner  may  have  been 
a  shade  more  vivid  than  usual,  but  she  pre 
served  all  her  bright  composure  of  glance 
and  speech,  so  that  one  guessed,  under  the 
rapid  dispersal  of  words,  an  undisturbed 
steadiness  of  perception.  She  was  lavishly 
but  not  indiscriminately  interested  in  the 
evidences  of  her  host's  industry,  and  as 
the  other  guests  assembled,  straying  with 
vague  ejaculations  through  the  labyrinth  of 
scale  drawings  and  blue  prints,  Mrs.  Pey 
ton  noted  that  Miss  Verney  alone  knew 
what  these  symbols  stood  for. 

To  his  visitors'  requests  to  be  shown  his 
plans  for  the  competition,  Peyton  had  op 
posed  a  laughing  refusal,  enforced  by  the 
presence  of  two  fellow-architects,  young 
men  with  lingering  traces  of  the  Beaux 
Arts  in  their  costume  and  vocabulary,  who 
stood  about  in  Gavarni  attitudes  and  daz 
zled  the  ladies  by  allusions  to  fenestration 
[91  ] 


SANCTUARY 

and  entasis.  The  party  had  already  drifted 
back  to  the  tea-table  when  a  hesitating 
knock  announced  Darrow's  approach.  He 
entered  with  his  usual  air  of  having  blun 
dered  in  by  mistake,  embarrassed  by  his 
hat  and  great-coat,  and  thrown  into  deeper 
confusion  by  the  necessity  of  being  intro 
duced  to  the  ladies  grouped  about  the  urn. 
To  the  men  he  threw  a  gruff  nod  of  fellow 
ship,  and  Dick  having  relieved  him  of  his 
encumbrances,  he  retreated  behind  the  shel 
ter  of  Mrs.  Peyton's  welcome.  The  latter 
judiciously  gave  him  time  to  recover,  and 
when  she  turned  to  him  he  was  engaged  in 
a  surreptitious  inspection  of  Miss  Verney, 
whose  dusky  slenderness,  relieved  against 
the  bare  walls  of  the  office,  made  her  look 
like  a  young  St.  John  of  Donatello's.  The 
girl  returned  his  look  with  one  of  her  clear 
glances,  and  the  group  having  presently 
broken  up  again,  Mrs.  Peyton  saw  that  she 
had  drifted  to  Darrow's  side.  The  visitors 
[92] 


SANCTUARY 

at  length  wandered  back  to  the  work-room 
to  see  a  portfolio  of  Dick's  water-colours; 
but  Mrs.  Peyton  remained  seated  behind 
the  urn,  listening  to  the  interchange  of  talk 
through  the  open  door  while  she  tried  to 
coordinate  her  impressions. 

She  saw  that  Miss  Verney  was  sincerely 
interested  in  Dick's  work :  it  was  the  nature 
of  her  interest  that  remained  in  doubt.  As 
if  to  solve  this  doubt,  the  girl  presently 
reappeared  alone  on  the  threshold,  and 
discovering  Mrs.  Peyton,  advanced  toward 
her  with  a  smile. 

"Are  you  tired  of  hearing  us  praise  Mr. 
Peyton's  things?"  she  asked,  dropping  into 
a  low  chair  beside  her  hostess.  "Unintelli 
gent  admiration  must  be  a  bore  to  people 
who  know,  and  Mr.  Darrow  tells  me  you 
are  almost  as  learned  as  your  son." 

Mrs.  Peyton  returned  the  smile,  but 
evaded  the  question.  "I  should  be  sorry  to 
think  your  admiration  unintelligent,"  she 
[93] 


SANCTUARY 

said.  "I  like  to  feel  that  my  boy's  work  is 
appreciated  by  people  who  understand  it." 

"Oh,  I  have  the  usual  smattering,"  said 
Miss  Verney  carelessly.  "I  think  I  know 
why  I  admire  his  work ;  but  then  I  am  sure 
I  see  more  in  it  when  some  one  like  Mr. 
Darrow  tells  me  how  remarkable  it  is." 

"Does  Mr.  Darrow  say  that?"  the  mo 
ther  exclaimed,  losing  sight  of  her  object 
in  the  rush  of  maternal  pleasure. 

"  He  has  said  nothing  else :  it  seems  to  be 
the  only  subject  which  loosens  his  tongue. 
I  believe  he  is  more  anxious  to  have  your 
son  win  the  competition  than  to  win  it  him 
self." 

"He  is  a  very  good  friend,"  Mrs.  Peyton 
assented.  She  was  struck  by  the  way  in 
which  the  girl  led  the  topic  back  to  the  spe 
cial  application  of  it  which  interested  her. 
She  had  none  of  the  artifices  of  prudery. 

"He  feels  sure  that  Mr.  Peyton  will 
win,"  Miss  Verney  continued.  "  It  was  very 
[94] 


SANCTUARY 

interesting  to  hear  his  reasons.  He  is  an 
extraordinarily  interesting  man.  It  must 
be  a  tremendous  incentive  to  have  such  a 
friend." 

Mrs.  Peyton  hesitated.  "The  friendship 
is  delightful ;  but  I  don't  know  that  my  son 
needs  the  incentive.  He  is  almost  too  am 
bitious." 

Miss  Verney  looked  up  brightly.  "Can 
one  be?"  she  said.  "Ambition  is  so  splen 
did!  It  must  be  so  glorious  to  be  a  man 
and  go  crashing  through  obstacles,  straight 
up  to  the  thing  one  is  after.  I  'm  afraid  I 
don't  care  for  people  who  are  superior  to 
success.  I  like  marriage  by  capture!"  She 
rose  with  her  wandering  laugh,  and  stood 
flushed  and  sparkling  above  Mrs.  Peyton, 
who  continued  to  gaze  at  her  gravely. 

"What  do  you  call  success?"  the  latter 
asked. "  It  means  so  many  different  things." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  know — the  inward  approval, 
and  all  that.  Well,  I  'm  afraid  I  like  the 
[95] 


SANCTUARY 

other  kind:  the  drums  and  wreaths  and 
acclamations.  If  I  were  Mr.  Peyton,  for 
instance,  I  'd  much  rather  win  the  com 
petition  than — than  be  as  disinterested  as 
Mr.  Darrow." 

Mrs.  Peyton  smiled.  "I  hope  you  won't 
tell  him  so,"  she  said  half  seriously.  "He  is 
over-stimulated  already;  and  he  is  so  easily 
influenced  by  any  one  who — whose  opin 
ion  he  values." 

She  stopped  abruptly,  hearing  herself, 
with  a  strange  inward  shock,  reecho  the 
words  which  another  man's  mother  had 
once  spoken  to  her.  Miss  Verney  did  not 
seem  to  take  the  allusion  to  herself,  for  she 
continued  to  fix  on  Mrs.  Peyton  a  gaze  of 
impartial  sympathy. 

"But  we  can't  help  being  interested!" 
she  declared. 

"It's  very  kind  of  you;  but  I  wish  you 
would  all  help  him  to  feel  that  this  com 
petition  is  after  all  of  very  little  account 
[96] 


SANCTUARY 

compared  with  other  things — his  health 
and  his  peace  of  mind,  for  instance.  He  is 
looking  horribly  used  up." 

The  girl  glanced  over  her  shoulder  at 
Dick,  who  was  just  reentering  the  room 
at  Darrow's  side. 

"Oh,  do  you  think  so?"  she  said.  "I 
should  have  thought  it  was  his  friend  who 
was  used  up." 

Mrs.  Peyton  followed  the  glance  with 
surprise.  She  had  been  too  preoccupied 
to  notice  Darrow,  whose  crudely  modelled 
face  was  always  of  a  dull  pallour,  to  which 
his  slow-moving  grey  eye  lent  no  relief  ex 
cept  in  rare  moments  of  expansion.  Now  the 
face  had  the  fallen  lines  of  a  death-mask, 
in  which  only  the  smile  he  turned  on  Dick 
remained  alive;  and  the  sight  smote  her 
with  compunction.  Poor  Darrow!  He  did 
look  horribly  fagged  out:  as  if  he  needed 
care  and  petting  and  good  food.  No  one 
knew  exactly  how  he  lived.  His  rooms,  ac- 
[97] 


SANCTUARY 

cording  to  Dick's  report,  were  fireless  and 
ill  kept,  but  he  stuck  to  them  because  his 
landlady,  whom  he  had  fished  out  of  some 
financial  plight,  had  difficulty  in  obtaining 
other  lodgers.  He  belonged  to  no  club,  and 
wandered  out  alone  for  his  meals,  myste 
riously  refusing  the  hospitality  which  his 
friends  pressed  on  him.  It  was  plain  that 
he  was  very  poor,  and  Dick  conjectured 
that  he  sent  what  he  earned  to  an  aunt 
in  his  native  village;  but  he  was  so  silent 
about  such  matters  that,  outside  of  his  pro 
fession,  he  seemed  to  have  no  personal  life. 
Miss  Verney's  companion  having  pre 
sently  advised  her  of  the  lapse  of  time, 
there  ensued  a  general  leave-taking,  at 
the  close  of  which  Dick  accompanied  the 
ladies  to  their  carriage.  Darrow  was  mean 
while  blundering  into  his  great-coat,  a  pro 
cess  which  always  threw  him  into  a  state 
of  perspiring  embarrassment ;  but  Mrs.  Pey 
ton,  surprising  him  in  the  act,  suggested 
[98] 


SANCTUARY 

that  he  should  defer  it  and  give  her  a  few 
moments'  talk. 

"Let  me  make  you  some  fresh  tea,"  she 
said,  as  Darrow  blushingly  shed  the  gar 
ment,  "and  when  Dick  comes  back  we'll  all 
walk  home  together.  I  Ve  not  had  a  chance 
to  say  two  words  to  you  this  winter." 

Darrow  sank  into  a  chair  at  her  side  and 
nervously  contemplated  his  boots.  "  I  Ve 
been  tremendously  hard  at  work,"  he  said. 

"  I  know :  too  hard  at  work,  I  'm  afraid. 
Dick  tells  me  you  have  been  wearing  your 
self  out  over  your  competition  plans." 

"  Oh,  well,  I  shall  have  time  to  rest  now," 
he  returned.  "I  put  the  last  stroke  to  them 
this  morning." 

Mrs.  Peyton  gave  him  a  quick  look. 
"You're  ahead  of  Dick,  then." 

"  In  point  of  time  only,"  he  said  smiling. 

"That  is  in  itself  an  advantage,"  she 
answered  with  a  tinge  of  asperity.  In  spite 
of  an  honest  effort  for  impartiality  she 
[99] 


SANCTUARY 

could  not,  at  the  moment,  help  regarding 
Darrow  as  an  obstacle  in  her  son's  path. 

"I  wish  the  competition  were  over!"  she 
exclaimed,  conscious  that  her  voice  had  be 
trayed  her.  "I  hate  to  see  you  both  looking 
so  fagged." 

Darrow  smiled  again,  perhaps  at  her 
studied  inclusion  of  himself. 

"Oh,  Dick's  all  right,"  he  said.  "Hell 
pull  himself  together  in  no  time." 

He  spoke  with  an  emphasis  which  might 
have  struck  her,  if  her  sympathies  had  not 
again  been  deflected  by  the  allusion  to  her 
son. 

"  Not  if  he  does  n't  win,"  she  exclaimed. 

Darrow  took  the  tea  she  had  poured  for 
him,  knocking  the  spoon  to  the  floor  in  his 
eagerness  to  perform  the  feat  gracefully. 
In  bending  to  recover  the  spoon  he  struck 
the  tea-table  with  his  shoulder,  and  set  the 
cups  dancing.  Having  regained  a  measure 
of  composure,  he  took  a  swallow  of  the  hot 
[  100] 


SANCTUARY 

tea  and  set  it  down  with  a  gasp,  precari 
ously  near  the  edge  of  the  tea-table.  Mrs. 
Peyton  rescued  the  cup,  and  Darrow,  ap 
parently  forgetting  its  existence,  rose  and 
began  to  pace  the  room.  It  was  always 
hard  for  him  to  sit  still  when  he  talked. 

"You  mean  he 's  so  tremendously  set  on 
it?"  he  broke  out. 

Mrs.  Peyton  hesitated.  "You  know  him 
almost  as  well  as  I  do,"  she  said.  "He's 
capable  of  anything  where  there  is  a  possi 
bility  of  success ;  but  I  'm  always  afraid  of 
the  reaction." 

"Oh,  well,  Dick's  a  man,"  said  Dar 
row  bluntly.  "  Besides,  he 's  going  to  suc 
ceed." 

"  I  wish  he  did  n't  feel  so  sure  of  it.  You 
must  n't  think  I  'm  afraid  for  him.  He 's  a 
man,  and  I  want  him  to  take  his  chances 
with  other  men ;  but  I  wish  he  did  n't  care 
so  much  about  what  people  think." 

"People?" 

[101  ] 


SANCTUARY 

"Miss  Verney,  then:  I  suppose  you 
know." 

Darrow  paused  in  front  of  her.  "Yes: 
he 's  talked  a  good  deal  about  her.  You 
think  she  wants  him  to  succeed?" 

"At  any  price!" 

He  drew  his  brows  together.  "What  do 
you  call  any  price?" 

"Well — herself,  in  this  case,  I  believe." 

Darrow  bent  a  puzzled  stare  on  her. 
"You  mean  she  attaches  that  amount  of 
importance  to  this  competition?" 

"She  seems  to  regard  it  as  symbolical: 
that 's  what  I  gather.  And  I  'm  afraid  she 's 
given  him  the  same  impression." 

D  arrow's  sunken  face  was  suffused  by 
his  rare  smile.  "Oh,  well,  he'll  pull  it  off 
then! "he  said. 

Mrs.  Peyton  rose  with  a  distracted  sigh. 
"I  half  hope  he  won't,  for  such  a  motive," 
she  exclaimed. 

"The  motive  won't  show  in  his  work," 
[  102  ] 


SANCTUARY 

said  Darrow.  He  added,  after  a  pause  prob 
ably  devoted  to  the  search  for  the  right 
word:  "He  seems  to  think  a  great  deal  of 
her." 

Mrs.  Peyton  fixed  him  thoughtfully.  "I 
wish  I  knew  what  you  think  of  her." 

"Why,  I  never  saw  her  before." 

"No;  but  you  talked  with  her  to-day. 
You've  formed  an  opinion:  I  think  you 
came  here  on  purpose." 

He  chuckled  joyously  at  her  discern 
ment  :  she  had  always  seemed  to  him  gifted 
with  supernatural  insight.  "Well,  I  did 
want  to  see  her,"  he  owned. 

"And  what  do  you  think?" 

He  took  a  few  vague  steps  and  then 
halted  before  Mrs.  Peyton.  "I  think,"  he 
said,  smiling,  "that  she  likes  to  be  helped 
first,  and  to  have  everything  on  her  plate 
at  once." 


[  103  ] 


SANCTUARY 

in 

AT  dinner,  with  a  rush  of  contrition,  Mrs. 
Peyton  remembered  that  she  had  after  all 
not  spoken  to  Darrow  about  his  health.  He 
had  distracted  her  by  beginning  to  talk 
of  Dick;  and  besides,  much  as  Darrow's 
opinions  interested  her,  his  personality  had 
never  fixed  her  attention.  He  always  seemed 
to  her  simply  a  vehicle  for  the  transmission 
of  ideas. 

It  was  Dick  who  recalled  her  to  a  sense 
of  her  omission  by  asking  if  she  hadn't 
thought  that  old  Paul  looked  rather  more 
ragged  than  usual. 

"He  did  look  tired,"  Mrs.  Peyton  con 
ceded.  "I  meant  to  tell  him  to  take  care 
of  himself." 

Dick  laughed  at  the  futility  of  the  mea 
sure.  "Old  Paul  is  never  tired :  he  can  work 
twenty -five  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four. 
The  trouble  with  him  is  that  he's  ill. 
[  104  ] 


SANCTUARY 

Something  wrong  with  the  machinery,  I  'm 
afraid." 

"Oh,  I  'm  sorry.  Has  he  seen  a  doctor?" 

"He  would  n't  listen  to  me  when  I  sug 
gested  it  the  other  day ;  but  he 's  so  deuced 
mysterious  that  I  don't  know  what  he  may 
have  done  since."  Dick  rose,  putting  down 
his  coffee-cup  and  half-smoked  cigarette. 
"I  Ve  half  a  mind  to  pop  in  on  him  tonight 
and  see  how  he 's  getting  on." 

"But  he  lives  at  the  other  end  of  the 
earth;  and  you're  tired  yourself." 

"I  'm  not  tired ;  only  a  little  strung-up," 
he  returned,  smiling.  "And  besides,  I'm 
going  to  meet  Gill  at  the  office  by  and  by 
and  put  in  a  night's  work.  It  won't  hurt 
me  to  take  a  look  at  Paul  first." 

Mrs.  Peyton  was  silent.  She  knew  it 
was  useless  to  contend  with  her  son  about 
his  work,  and  she  tried  to  fortify  herself 
with  the  remembrance  of  her  own  words 
to  Darrow :  Dick  was  a  man  and  must  take 
[  105  ] 


SANCTUARY 

his  chance  with  other  men. 

But  Dick,  glancing  at  his  watch,  uttered 
an  exclamation  of  annoyance.  "Oh,  by 
Jove,  I  shan't  have  time  after  all.  Gill  is 
waiting  for  me  now;  we  must  have  dawdled 
over  dinner."  He  bent  to  give  his  mother 
a  caressing  tap  on  the  cheek.  "Now  don't 
worry,"  he  adjured  her;  and  as  she  smiled 
back  at  him  he  added  with  a  sudden  happy 
blush :  "  She  does  n't,  you  know :  she 's  so 
sure  of  me." 

Mrs.  Peyton's  smile  faded,  and  laying  a 
detaining  hand  on  his,  she  said  with  sud 
den  directness:  "Sure  of  you,  or  of  your 
success?" 

He  hesitated.  "Oh,  she  regards  them  as 
synonymous.  She  thinks  I  'm  bound  to  get 
on." 

"But  if  you  don't?" 

He  shrugged  laughingly,  but  with  a  slight 
contraction  of  his  confident  brows.  "Why, 
I  shall  have  to  make  way  for  some  one 
[106] 


SANCTUARY 
else,  I  suppose.  That's  the  law  of  life." 

Mrs.  Peyton  sat  upright,  gazing  at  him 
with  a  kind  of  solemnity.  "Is  it  the  law  of 
love?"  she  asked. 

He  looked  down  on  her  with  a  smile  that 
trembled  a  little.  "My  dear  romantic  mo 
ther,  I  don't  want  her  pity,  you  know  1 " 

Dick,  coming  home  the  next  morning 
shortly  before  daylight,  left  the  house  again 
after  a  hurried  breakfast,  and  Mrs.  Peyton 
heard  nothing  of  him  till  nightfall.  He  had 
promised  to  be  back  for  dinner,  but  a  few 
moments  before  eight,  as  she  was  coming 
down  to  the  drawing-room,  the  parlour 
maid  handed  her  a  hastily  pencilled  note. 

"Don't  wait  for  me,"  it  ran.  "Darrow  is 
ill  and  I  can't  leave  him.  I'll  send  a  line 
when  the  doctor  has  seen  him." 

Mrs.  Peyton,  who  was  a  woman  of  rapid 
reactions,  read  the  words  with  a  pang.  She 
was  ashamed  of  the  jealous  thoughts  she 
[107] 


SANCTUARY 

had  harboured  of  Darrow,  and  of  the  sel 
fishness  which  had  made  her  lose  sight  of 
his  troubles  in  the  consideration  of  Dick's 
welfare.  Even  Clemence  Verney,  whom  she 
secretly  accused  of  a  want  of  heart,  had 
been  struck  by  Darrow 's  ill  looks,  while 
she  had  had  eyes  only  for  her  son.  Poor 
Darrow!  How  cold  and  self-engrossed  he 
must  have  thought  her !  In  the  first  rush  of 
penitence  her  impulse  was  to  drive  at  once 
to  his  lodgings ;  but  the  infection  of  his  own 
shyness  restrained  her.  Dick's  note  gave  no 
details :  the  illness  was  evidently  grave,  but 
might  not  Darrow  regard  her  coming  as  an 
intrusion  ?  To  repair  her  negligence  of  yes 
terday  by  a  sudden  invasion  of  his  privacy 
might  be  only  a  greater  failure  in  tact;  and 
after  a  moment  of  deliberation  she  resolved 
on  sending  to  ask  Dick  if  he  wished  her  to 
go  to  him. 

The  reply,  which  came  late,  was  what 
she  had  expected.  "No;  we  have  all  the 
[  108] 


SANCTUARY 

help  we  need.  The  doctor  has  sent  a  good 
nurse,  and  is  coming  again  later.  It's  pneu 
monia,  but  of  course  he  does  n't  say  much 
yet.  Let  me  have  some  beef-juice  as  soon 
as  the  cook  can  make  it." 

The  beef -juice  ordered  and  dispatched, 
she  was  left  to  a  vigil  in  melancholy  con 
trast  to  that  of  the  previous  evening.  Then 
she  had  been  enclosed  in  the  narrow  limits 
of  her  maternal  interests;  now  the  barriers 
of  self  were  broken  down,  and  her  personal 
preoccupations  swept  away  on  the  current 
of  a  wider  sympathy.  As  she  sat  there  in 
the  radius  of  lamp-light  which,  for  so  many 
evenings,  had  held  Dick  and  herself  in  a 
charmed  circle  of  tenderness,  she  saw  that 
her  love  for  her  boy  had  come  to  be  merely 
a  kind  of  extended  egotism.  Love  had  nar 
rowed  instead  of  widening  her,  had  rebuilt 
between  herself  and  life  the  very  walls 
which,  years  and  years  before,  she  had  laid 
low  with  bleeding  fingers.  It  was  horrible, 
[109] 


SANCTUARY 

how  she  had  come  to  sacrifice  everything  to 
the  one  passion  of  ambition  for  her  boy.  . . . 

At  daylight  she  sent  another  messenger, 
one  of  her  own  servants,  who  returned  with 
out  having  seen  Dick.  Mr.  Peyton  had 
sent  word  that  there  was  no  change.  He 
would  write  later ;  he  wanted  nothing.  The 
day  wore  on  drearily.  Once  Kate  found 
herself  computing  the  precious  hours  lost 
to  Dick's  unfinished  task.  She  blushed  at 
her  ineradicable  selfishness,  and  tried  to 
turn  her  mind  to  poor  Darrow.  But  she 
could  not  master  her  impulses;  and  now 
she  caught  herself  indulging  the  thought 
that  his  illness  would  at  least  exclude  him 
from  the  competition.  But  no — she  re 
membered  that  he  had  said  his  work  was 
finished.  Come  what  might,  he  stood  in  the 
path  of  her  boy's  success.  She  hated  herself 
for  the  thought,  but  it  would  not  down. 

Evening  drew  on,  but  there  was  no  note 
from  Dick.  At  length,  in  the  shamed  re- 
[110] 


SANCTUARY 

action  from  her  fears,  she  rang  for  a  car 
riage  and  went  upstairs  to  dress.  She  could 
stand  aloof  no  longer:  she  must  go  to 
Darrow,  if  only  to  escape  from  her  wicked 
thoughts  of  him.  As  she  came  down  again 
she  heard  Dick's  key  in  the  door.  She  has 
tened  her  steps,  and  as  she  reached  the  hall 
he  stood  before  her  without  speaking. 

She  looked  at  him  and  the  question  died 
on  her  lips.  He  nodded,  and  walked  slowly 
past  her. 

"There  was  no  hope  from  the  first,"  he 
said. 

The  next  day  Dick  was  taken  up  with 
the  preparations  for  the  funeral.  The  dis 
tant  aunt,  who  appeared  to  be  Darrow 's 
only  relation,  had  been  duly  notified  of  his 
death ;  but  no  answer  having  been  received 
from  her,  it  was  left  to  his  friend  to  fulfil 
the  customary  duties.  He  was  again  ab 
sent  for  the  best  part  of  the  day ;  and  when 


SANCTUARY 

he  returned  at  dusk  Mrs.  Peyton,  looking 
up  from  the  tea-table  behind  which  she 
awaited  him,  was  startled  by  the  deep- 
lined  misery  of  his  face. 

Her  own  thoughts  were  too  painful 
for  ready  expression,  and  they  sat  for  a 
while  in  a  mute  community  of  wretched 
ness. 

"Is  everything  arranged?"  she  asked  at 
length. 

"Yes.  Everything." 

"And  you  have  not  heard  from  the 
aunt?" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"  Can  you  find  no  trace  of  any  other  re 
lations  ? " 

"None.  I  went  over  all  his  papers.  There 
were  very  few,  and  I  found  no  address  but 
the  aunt's."  He  sat  thrown  back  in  his 
chair,  disregarding  the  cup  of  tea  she  had 
mechanically  poured  for  him.  "I  found 
this,  though,"  he  added  after  a  pause, 


SANCTUARY 

drawing  a  letter  from  his  pocket  and  hold 
ing  it  out  to  her. 

She  took  it  doubtfully.  "Ought  I  to 
read  it?" 

"Yes." 

She  saw  then  that  the  envelope,  in 
Darrow's  hand,  was  addressed  to  her  son. 
Within  were  a  few  pencilled  words,  dated 
on  the  first  day  of  his  illness,  the  morrow 
of  the  day  on  which  she  had  last  seen  him. 

"Dear  Dick,"  she  read,  "I  want  you  to 
"use  my  plans  for  the  museum  if  you  can 
"get  any  good  out  of  them.  Even  if  I  pull 
"out  of  this  I  want  you  to.  I  shall  have 
"other  chances,  and  I  have  an  idea  this 
"one  means  a  lot  to  you." 

Mrs.  Peyton  sat  speechless,  gazing  at  the 
date  of  the  letter,  which  she  had  instantly 
connected  with  her  last  talk  with  Darrow. 
She  saw  that  he  had  understood  her,  and 
the  thought  scorched  her  to  the  soul. 

"Was  n't  it  glorious  of  him?"  Dick  said. 
[113] 


SANCTUARY 

She  dropped  the  letter,  and  hid  her  face 
in  her  hands. 

IV 

THE  funeral  took  place  the  next  morning, 
and  on  the  return  from  the  cemetery  Dick 
told  his  mother  that  he  must  go  and  look 
over  things  at  Darrow's  office.  He  had 
heard  the  day  before  from  his  friend's  aunt, 
a  helpless  person  to  whom  telegraphy  was 
difficult  and  travel  inconceivable,  and  who, 
in  eight  pages  of  unpunctuated  eloquence, 
made  over  to  Dick  what  she  called  the 
melancholy  privilege  of  winding  up  her 
nephew's  affairs. 

Mrs.  Peyton  looked  anxiously  at  her  son. 
"  Is  there  no  one  who  can  do  this  for  you  ? 
He  must  have  had  a  clerk  or  some  one  who 
knows  about  his  work." 

Dick  shook  his  head.  "Not  lately.  He 
hasn't  had  much  to  do  this  winter,  and 

[114] 


SANCTUARY 

these  last  months  he  had  chucked  every 
thing  to  work  alone  over  his  plans." 

The  word  brought  a  faint  colour  to  Mrs. 
Peyton's  cheek.  It  was  the  first  allusion 
that  either  of  them  had  made  to  Darrow's 
bequest. 

"Oh,  of  course  you  must  do  all  you 
can,"  she  murmured,  turning  alone  into 
the  house. 

The  emotions  of  the  morning  had  stirred 
her  deeply,  and  she  sat  at  home  during  the 
day,  letting  her  mind  dwelt  in  a  kind  of 

•/   *  ^5  ^^^^  * 

retrospective  piety,  oiroie  thought  of  poor 
Darrow's  devotion.  She  had  given  him  too 
little  time  while  he  lived,  had  acquiesced 
too  easily  in  his  growing  habits  of  seclusion ; 
and  she  felt  it  as  a  proof  of  insensibility  that 
she  had  not  been  more  closely  drawn  to 
the  one  person  who  had  loved  Dick  as  she 
loved  him.  The  evidence  of  that  love,  as 
shown  in  Darrow's  letter,  filled  her  with  a 
vain  compunction.  The  very  extravagance 
[115] 


SANCTUARY 

of  his  offer  lent  it  a  deeper  pathos.  It  was 
wonderful  that,  even  in  the  urgency  of 
affection,  a  man  of  his  almost  morbid 
rectitude  should  have  overlooked  the  re 
strictions  of  professional  honour,  should 
have  implied  the  possibility  of  his  friend's 
overlooking  them.  It  seemed  to  make  his 
sacrifice  the  more  complete  that  it  had, 
unconsciously,  taken  the  form  of  a  subtle 
temptation. 

The  last  word  arrested  Mrs.  Peyton's 
thoughts.  A  temptation  ?  To  whom  ?  Not, 
surely,  to  one  capable,  as  her  son  was  capa 
ble,  of  rising  to  the  height  of  his  friend's 
devotion.  The  offer,  to  Dick,  would  mean 
simply,  as  it  meant  to  her,  the  last  touching 
expression  of  an  inarticulate  fidelity:  the 
utterance  of  a  love  which  at  last  had  found 
its  formula.  Mrs.  Peyton  dismissed  as  mor 
bid  any  other  view  of  the  case.  She  was 
annoyed  with  herself  for  supposing  that 
Dick  could  be  ever  so  remotely  affected 
[116] 


SANCTUARY 

by  the  possibility  at  which  poor  Darrow's 
renunciation  hinted.  The  nature  of  the 
offer  removed  it  from  practical  issues  to  the 
idealizing  region  of  sentiment. 

Mrs.  Peyton  had  been  sitting  alone 
with  these  thoughts  for  the  greater  part  of 
the  afternoon,  and  dusk  was  falling  when 
Dick  entered  the  drawing-room.  In  the 
dim  light,  with  his  pallour  heightened  by 
the  sombre  effect  of  his  mourning,  he  came 
upon  her  almost  startlingly,  with  a  revival 
of  some  long-effaced  impression  which,  for 
a  moment,  gave  her  the  sense  of  struggling 
among  shadows.  She  did  not,  at  first,  know 
what  had  produced  the  effect ;  then  she  saw 
that  it  was  his  likeness  to  his  father. 

"Well — is  it  over?  "she  asked,  as  he  threw 
himself  into  a  chair  without  speaking. 

"Yes:  I  Ve  looked  through  everything." 
He  leaned  back,  crossing  his  hands  behind 
his  head,  and  gazing  past  her  with  a  look 
of  utter  lassitude. 

[117] 


SANCTUARY 

She  paused  a  moment,  and  then  said 
tentatively:  "To-morrow  you  will  be  able 
to  go  back  to  your  work." 

"Oh — my  work,"  he  exclaimed,  as  if  to 
brush  aside  an  ill-timed  pleasantry. 

"Are  you  too  tired?" 

"No."  He  rose  and  began  to  wander  up 
and  down  the  room.  "I'm  not  tired. — 
Give  me  some  tea,  will  you?"  He  paused 
before  her  while  she  poured  the  cup,  and 
then,  without  taking  it,  turned  away  to 
light  a  cigarette. 

"Surely  there  is  still  time?"  she  sug 
gested,  with  her  eyes  on  him. 

"Time?  To  finish  my  plans?  Oh,  yes 
— there's  time.  But  they're  not  worth 
it." 

"Not  worth  it?"  She  started  up,  and 
then  dropped  back  into  her  seat,  ashamed 
of  having  betrayed  her  anxiety.  "They  are 
worth  as  much  as  they  were  last  week," 
she  said  with  an  attempt  at  cheerfulness. 


SANCTUARY 

"Not  to  me,"  he  returned.  "I  hadn't 
seen  Darrow's  then." 

There  was  a  long  silence.  Mrs.  Peyton 
satwith  her  eyes  fixed  on  her  clasped  hands, 
and  her  son  paced  the  room  restlessly. 

"Are  they  so  wonderful?"  she  asked  at 
length. 

"Yes." 

She  paused  again,  and  then  said,  lifting  a 
tremulous  glance  to  his  face:  "That  makes 
his  offer  all  the  more  beautiful." 

Dick  was  lighting  another  cigarette,  and 
his  face  was  turned  from  her.  "Yes — I 
suppose  so,"  he  said  in  a  low  tone. 

"They  were  quite  finished,  he  told  me," 
she  continued,  unconsciously  dropping  her 
voice  to  the  pitch  of  his. 

"Yes." 

"Then  they  will  be  entered,  I  suppose?" 

"Of  course — why  not?"  he  answered 
almost  sharply. 

"Shall  you  have  time  to  attend  to  all 
[119] 


SANCTUARY 
that  and  to  finish  yours  too?" 

"Oh,  I  suppose  so.  I  Ve  told  you  it  is  n't 
a  question  of  time.  I  see  now  that  mine  are 
not  worth  bothering  with." 

She  rose  and  approached  him,  laying 
her  hands  on  his  shoulders.  "You  are  tired 
and  unstrung;  how  can  you  judge?  Why 
not  let  me  look  at  both  designs  to-mor 
row?" 

Under  her  gaze  he  flushed  abruptly  and 
drew  back  with  a  half- impatient  gesture. 

"Oh,  I  'm  afraid  that  would  n't  help  me; 
you  'd  be  sure  to  think  mine  best,"  he  said 
with  a  laugh. 

"But  if  I  could  give  you  good  reasons?" 
she  pressed  him. 

He  took  her  hand,  as  if  ashamed  of  his 
impatience.  "Dear  mother,  if  you  had  any 
reasons  their  mere  existence  would  prove 
that  they  were  bad." 

His  mother  did  not  return  his  smile. 
"You  won't  let  me  see  the  two  designs 
[  120  ] 


SANCTUARY 

then?"  she  said  with  a  faint  tinge  of  in 
sistence. 

"Oh,  of  course — if  you  want  to — if  you 
only  won't  talk  about  it  now!  Can't  you 
see  that  I  'm  pretty  nearly  dead-beat?"  he 
burst  out  uncontrollably;  and  as  she  stood 
silent,  he  added  with  a  weary  fall  in  his 
voice,  "  I  think  I  '11  go  upstairs  and  see  if  I 
can't  get  a  nap  before  dinner." 

Though  they  had  separated  upon  the  as 
surance  that  she  should  see  the  two  designs 
if  she  wished  it,  Mrs.  Peyton  knew  they 
would  not  be  shown  to  her.  Dick,  indeed, 
would  not  again  deny  her  request;  but  had 
he  not  reckoned  on  the  improbability  of  her 
renewing  it  ?  All  night  she  lay  confronted 
by  that  question.  The  situation  shaped  it 
self  before  her  with  that  hallucinating  dis 
tinctness  which  belongs  to  the  midnight 
vision.  She  knew  now  why  Dick  had  sud-  j 
denly  reminded  her  of  his  father:  had  she- 
[121] 


SANCTUARY 

not  once  before  seen  the  same  thought 
moving  behind  the  same  eyes  ?  She  was  sure 
it  had  occurred  to  Dick  to  use  Darrow's 
drawings.  As  she  lay  awake  in  the  darkness 
she  could  hear  him,  long  after  midnight, 
pacing  the  floor  overhead:  she  held  her 
breath,  listening  to  the  recurring  beat  of  his 
foot,  which  seemed  that  of  an  imprisoned 
spirit  revolving  wearily  in  the  cage  of  the 
same  thought.  She  felt  in  every  fibre  that 
a  crisis  in  her  son's  life  had  been  reached, 
that  the  act  now  before  him  would  have 
a  determining  effect  on  his  whole  future. 
The  circumstances  of  her  past  had  raised 

to  clairvoyance  her  natural  insight  into 
1 
human  motive,  had  made  of  her  a  moral 

barometer  responding  to  the  faintest  fluc 
tuations  of  atmosphere,  and  years  of  anx 
ious  meditation  had  familiarized  her  with 
the  form  which  her  son's  temptations  were 
likely  to  take.  The  peculiar  misery  of  her 
situation  was  that  she  could  not,  except 


SANCTUARY 

indirectly,  put  this  intuition,  this  foresight, 
at  his  service.  It  was  a  part  of  her  discern 
ment  to  be  aware  that  life  is  the  only  real 
counsellor,  that  wisdom  unfiltered  through 
personal  experience  does  not  become  a  part 
of  the  moral  tissues.  Love  such  as  hers  had 
a  great  office,  the  office  of  preparation  and 
direction;  but  it  must  know  how  to  hold 
its  hand  and  keep  its  counsel,  how  to  at 
tend  upon  its  object  as  an  invisible  influ 
ence  rather  than  as  an  active  interference. 
All  this  Kate  Peyton  had  told  herself 
again  and  again,  during  those  hours  of 
anxious  calculation  in  which  she  had  tried 
to  cast  Dick's  horoscope;  but  not  in  her 
moments  of  most  fantastic  foreboding  had 
she  figured  so  cruel  a  test  of  her  courage. 
If  her  prayers  for  him  had  taken  precise 
shape,  she  might  have  asked  that  he  should 
be  spared  the  spectacular,  the  dramatic  ap 
peal  to  his  will-power :  that  his  temptations 
should  slip  by  him  in  a  dull  disguise.  She 
[  128  ] 


SANCTUARY 

had  secured  him  against  all  ordinary  forms 
of  baseness;  the  vulnerable  point  lay  higher, 
in  that  region  of  idealizing  egotism  which 
is  the  seat  of  life  in  such  natures. 

Years  of  solitary  foresight  gave  her  mind 
a  singular  alertness  in  dealing  with  such 
possibilities.  She  saw  at  once  that  the  peril 
of  the  situation  lay  in  the  minimum  of  risk 
it  involved.  Darrow  had  employed  no  as 
sistant  in  working  out  his  plans  for  the 
competition,  and  his  secluded  life  made  it 
almost  certain  that  he  had  not  shown  them 
to  any  one,  and  that  she  and  Dick  alone 
knew  them  to  have  been  completed.  More 
over,  it  was  a  part  of  Dick's  duty  to  ex 
amine  the  contents  of  his  friend's  office, 
and  in  doing  this  nothing  would  be  easier 
than  to  possess  himself  of  the  drawings 
and  make  use  of  any  part  of  them  that 
might  serve  his  purpose.  He  had  Darrow's 
authority  for  doing  so ;  and  though  the  act 
involved  a  slight  breach  of  professional 
[  124  ] 


SANCTUARY 

probity,  might  not  his  friend's  wishes  be 
invoked  as  a  secret  justification?  Mrs.  Pey 
ton  found  herself  almost  hating  poor  Dar- 
row  for  having  been  the  unconscious  in 
strument  of  her  son's  temptation.  But  what 
right  had  she,  after  all,  to  suspect  Dick  of 
considering,  even  for  a  moment,  the  act  of 
which  she  was  so  ready  to  accuse  him  ?  His 
unwillingness  to  let  her  see  the  drawings 
might  have  been  the  accidental  result  of 
lassitude  and  discouragement.  He  was  tired 
and  troubled,  and  she  had  chosen  the  wrong 
moment  to  make  the  request.  His  want  of 
readiness  might  even  be  due  to  the  wish 
to  conceal  from  her  how  far  his  friend  had 
surpassed  him.  She  knew  his  sensitiveness 
on  this  point,  and  reproached  herself  for 
not  having  foreseen  it.  But  her  own  argu 
ments  failed  to  convince  her.  Deep  be 
neath  her  love  for  her  boy  and  her  faith 
in  him  there  lurked  a  nameless  doubt.  She 
could  hardly  now,  in  looking  back,  define 
[  125] 


SANCTUARY 

the  impulse  upon  which  she  had  married 
Denis  Peyton:  she  knew  only  that  the 
deeps  of  her  nature  had  been  loosened,  and 
that  she  had  been  borne  forward  on  their 
current  to  the  very  fate  from  which  her 
heart  recoiled.  But  if  in  one  sense  her  mar 
riage  remained  a  problem,  there  was  an 
other  in  which  her  motherhood  seemed  to 
solve  it.  She  had  never  lost  the  sense  of 
having  snatched  her  child  from  some  dim 
peril  which  still  lurked  and  hovered;  and 
he  became  more  closely  hers  with  every  ef 
fort  of  her  vigilant  love.  For  the  act  of  res 
cue  had  not  been  accomplished  once  and 
for  all  in  the  moment  of  immolation :  it  had 
not  been  by  a  sudden  stroke  of  heroism,  but 
by  ever-renewed  and  indefatigable  effort, 
that  she  had  built  up  for  him  the  miraculous 
shelter  of  her  love.  And  now  that  it  stood 
there,  a  hallowed  refuge  against  failure,  she 
could  not  even  set  a  light  in  the  pane,  but 
must  let  him  grope  his  way  to  it  unaided. 
[  126] 


SANCTUARY 


MRS.  PEYTON'S  midnight  musings  summed 
themselves  up  in  the  conclusion  that  the 
next  few  hours  would  end  her  uncertainty. 
She  felt  the  day  to  be  decisive.  If  Dick 
offered  to  show  her  the  drawings,  her  fears 
would  be  proved  groundless ;  if  he  avoided 
the  subject,  they  were  justified. 

She  dressed  early  in  order  not  to  miss 
him  at  breakfast;  but  as  she  entered  the 
dining-room  the  parlour-maid  told  her  that 
Mr.  Peyton  had  overslept  himself,  and  had 
rung  to  have  his  breakfast  sent  upstairs. 
Was  it  a  pretext  to  avoid  her?  She  was 
vexed  at  her  own  readiness  to  see  a  por 
tent  in  the  simplest  incident;  but  while  she 
blushed  at  her  doubts  she  let  them  govern 
her.  She  left  the  dining-room  door  open, 
determined  not  to  miss  him  if  he  came 
downstairs  while  she  was  at  breakfast ;  then 
she  went  back  to  the  drawing-room  and 


SANCTUARY 

sat  down  at  her  writing-table,  trying  to 
busy  herself  with  some  accounts  while  she 
listened  for  his  step.  Here  too  she  had  left 
the  door  open ;  but  presently  even  this  slight 
departure  from  her  daily  usage  seemed  a 
deviation  from  the  passive  attitude  she  had 
adopted,  and  she  rose  and  shut  the  door. 
She  knew  that  she  could  still  hear  his  step 
on  the  stairs — he  had  his  father's  quick 
swinging  gait — but  as  she  sat  listening, 
and  vainly  trying  to  write,  the  closed  door 
seemed  to  symbolize  a  refusal  to  share  in 
his  trial,  a  hardening  of  herself  against  his 
need  of  her.  What  if  he  should  come  down 
intending  to  speak,  and  should  be  turned 
from  his  purpose?  Slighter  obstacles  have 
deflected  the  course  of  events  in  those  in 
determinate  moments  when  the  soul  floats 
between  two  tides.  She  sprang  up  quickly, 
and  as  her  hand  touched  the  latch  she 
heard  his  step  on  the  stairs. 

When  he  entered  the  drawing-room  she 
[128] 


SANCTUARY 

had  regained  the  writing-table  and  could 
lift  a  composed  face  to  his.  He  came  in 
hurriedly,  yet  with  a  kind  of  reluctance  be 
neath  his  haste:  again  it  was  his  father's 
step.  She  smiled,  but  looked  away  from 
him  as  he  approached  her;  she  seemed  to 
be  re-living  her  own  past  as  one  re-lives 
things  in  the  distortion  of  fever. 

"Are  you  off  already?"  she  asked,  glan 
cing  at  the  hat  in  his  hand. 

"Yes;  I  'm  late  as  it  is.  I  overslept  my 
self."  He  paused  and  looked  vaguely  about 
the  room.  "Don't  expect  me  till  late — 
don't  wait  dinner  for  me." 

She  stirred  impulsively.  "Dick,  you're 
overworking — you  '11  make  yourself  ill." 

"Nonsense.  I  'm  as  fit  as  ever  this  morn 
ing.  Don't  be  imagining  things." 

He  dropped  his  habitual  kiss  on  her  fore 
head,  and  turned  to  go.  On  the  threshold 
he  paused,  and  she  felt  that  something 
in  him  sought  her  and  then  drew  back. 
[129] 


SANCTUARY 

"Good-bye,"  he  called  to  her  as  the  door 
closed  on  him. 

She  sat  down  and  tried  to  survey  the 
situation  divested  of  her  midnight  fears. 
He  had  not  referred  to  her  wish  to  see  the 
drawings:  but  what  did  the  omission  sig 
nify?  Might  he  not  have  forgotten  her 
request?  Was  she  not  forcing  the  most 
trivial  details  to  fit  in  with  her  apprehen 
sions?  Unfortunately  for  her  own  reassur 
ance,  she  knew  that  her  familiarity  with 
Dick's  processes  was  based  on  such  minute 
observation,  and  that,  to  such  intimacy  as 
theirs,  no  indications  were  trivial.  She  was 
as  certain  as  if  he  had  spoken,  that  when 
he  had  left  the  house  that  morning  he  was 
weighing  the  possibility  of  using  Darrow's 
drawings,  of  supplementing  his  own  in 
complete  design  from  the  fulness  of  his 
friend's  invention.  And  with  a  bitter  pang 
she  divined  that  he  was  sorry  he  had  shown 
her  Darrow's  letter. 

[130] 


SANCTUARY 

It  was  impossible  to  remain  face  to  face 
with  such  conjectures,  and  though  she  had 
given  up  all  her  engagements  during  the 
few  days  since  Darrow's  death,  she  now 
took  refuge  in  the  thought  of  a  concert 
which  was  to  take  place  at  a  friend's  house 
that  morning.  The  music-room,  when  she 
entered,  was  thronged  with  acquaintances, 
and  she  found  transient  relief  in  that  dis 
persal  of  attention  which  makes  society  an 
anaesthetic  for  some  forms  of  wretched 
ness.  Contact  with  the  pressure  of  busy 
indifferent  life  often  gives  remoteness  to 
questions  which  have  clung  as  close  as  the 
flesh  to  the  bone ;  and  if  Mrs.  Peyton  did 
not  find  such  complete  release,  she  at  least 
interposed  between  herself  and  her  anxiety 
the  obligation  to  dissemble  it.  But  the  re 
lief  was  only  momentary,  and  when  the 
first  bars  of  the  overture  turned  from  her 
the  smiles  of  recognition  among  which  she 
had  tried  to  lose  herself,  she  felt  a  deeper 
[131  ] 


SANCTUARY 

sense  of  isolation.  The  music,  which  at  an 
other  time  would  have  swept  her  away  on 
some  rich  current  of  emotion,  now  seemed 
to  island  her  in  her  own  thoughts,  to  cre 
ate  an  artificial  solitude  in  which  she  found 
herself  more  immitigably  face  to  face  with 
her  fears.  The  silence,  the  recueillement, 
about  her  gave  resonance  to  the  inner 
voices,  lucidity  to  the  inner  vision,  till  she 
seemed  enclosed  in  a  luminous  empty  ho 
rizon  against  which  every  possibility  took 
the  sharp  edge  of  accomplished  fact.  With 
relentless  precision  the  course  of  events 
was  unrolled  before  her:  she  saw  Dick 
yielding  to  his  opportunity,  snatching  vic 
tory  from  dishonour,  winning  love,  happi 
ness  and  success  in  the  act  by  which  he 
lost  himself.  It  was  all  so  simple,  so  easy, 
so  inevitable,  that  she  felt  the  futility  of 
struggling  or  hoping  against  it.  He  would 
win  the  competition,  would  marry  Miss 
Verney,  would  press  on  to  achievement 


SANCTUARY 

through  the  opening  which  the  first  suc 
cess  had  made  for  him. 

As  Mrs.  Peyton  reached  this  point  in 
her  forecast,  she  found  her  outward  gaze 
arrested  by  the  face  of  the  young  lady  who 
so  dominated  her  inner  vision.  Miss  Ver- 
ney,  a  few  rows  distant,  sat  intent  upon 
the  music,  in  that  attitude  of  poised  mo 
tion  which  was  her  nearest  approach  to 
repose.  Her  slender  brown  profile  with  its 
breezy  hair,  her  quick  eye,  and  the  lips 
which  seemed  to  listen  as  well  as  speak, 
all  betokened  to  Mrs.  Peyton  a  nature 
through  which  the  obvious  energies  blew 
free,  a  bare  open  stretch  of  consciousness 
without  shelter  for  tenderer  growths.  She 
shivered  to  think  of  Dick's  frail  scruples 
exposed  to  those  rustling  airs.  And  then, 
suddenly,  a  new  thought  struck  her.  What 
if  she  might  turn  this  force  to  her  own  use, 
make  it  serve,  unconsciously  to  Dick,  as 
the  means  of  his  deliverance?  Hitherto  she 
[133] 


SANCTUARY 

had  assumed  that  her  son's  worst  danger 
lay  in  the  chance  of  his  confiding  his  diffi 
culty  to  Clemence  Verney;  and  she  had, 
in  her  own  past,  a  precedent  which  made 
her  think  such  a  confidence  not  unlikely. 
If  he  did  carry  his  scruples  to  the  girl, 
she  argued,  the  latter's  imperviousness,  her 
frank  inability  to  understand  them,  would 
have  the  effect  of  dispelling  them  like  mist ; 
and  he  was  acute  enough  to  know  this  and 
profit  by  it.  So  she  had  hitherto  reasoned; 
but  now  the  girl's  presence  seemed  to  clar 
ify  her  perceptions,  and  she  told  herself 
that  something  in  Dick's  nature,  some 
thing  which  she  herself  had  put  there, 
would  resist  this  short  cut  to  safety,  would 
make  him  take  the  more  tortuous  way  to 
his  goal  rather  than  gain  it  through  the 
privacies  of  the  heart  he  loved.  For  she 
had  lifted  him  thus  far  above  his  father, 
that  it  would  be  a  disenchantment  to  him 
to  find  that  Clemence  Verney  did  not  share 
[  134  ] 


SANCTUARY 

his  scruples.  On  this  much,  his  mother  now 
exultingly  felt,  she  could  count  in  her  pas 
sive  struggle  for  supremacy.  No,  he  would 
never,  never  tell  Clemence  Verney — and 
his  one  hope,  his  sure  salvation,  therefore 
lay  in  some  one  else's  telling  her. 

The  excitement  of  this  discovery  had 
nearly,  in  mid-concert,  swept  Mrs.  Peyton 
from  her  seat  to  the  girl's  side.  Fearing  to 
miss  the  latter  in  the  throng  at  the  en 
trance,  she  slipped  out  during  the  last  num 
ber  and,  lingering  in  the  farther  drawing- 
room,  let  the  dispersing  audience  drift  her 
in  Miss  Verney 's  direction.  The  girl  shone 
sympathetically  on  her  approach,  and  in 
a  moment  they  had  detached  themselves 
from  the  crowd  and  taken  refuge  in  the  per 
fumed  emptiness  of  the  conservatory. 

The  girl,  whose  sensations  were  always 
easily  set  in  motion,  had  at  first  a  good  deal 
to  say  of  the  music,  for  which  she  claimed, 
on  her  hearer's  part,  an  active  show  of 


SANCTUARY 

approval  or  dissent ;  but  this  dismissed,  she 
turned  a  melting  face  on  Mrs.  Peyton  and 
said  with  one  of  her  rapid  modulations  of 
tone :  "  I  was  so  sorry  about  poor  Mr.  Par- 


row." 


Mrs.  Peyton  uttered  an  assenting  sigh. 
"It  was  a  great  grief  to  us — a  great  loss 
to  my  son." 

"Yes — I  know.  I  can  imagine  what  you 
must  have  felt.  And  then  it  was  so  unlucky 
that  it  should  have  happened  just  now." 

Mrs.  Peyton  shot  a  reconnoitring  glance 
at  her  profile.  "His  dying,  you  mean,  on 
the  eve  of  success?" 

Miss  Verney  turned  a  frank  smile  upon 
her.  "One  ought  to  feel  that,  of  course 
— but  I'm  afraid  I  am  very  selfish  where 
my  friends  are  concerned,  and  I  was  think 
ing  of  Mr.  Peyton's  having  to  give  up  his 
work  at  such  a  critical  moment."  She  spoke 
without  a  note  of  deprecation :  there  was  a 
pagan  freshness  in  her  opportunism. 
[  136] 


SANCTUARY 

Mrs.  Peyton  was  silent,  and  the  girl 
continued  after  a  pause:  "I  suppose  now 
it  will  be  almost  impossible  for  him  to  fin 
ish  his  drawings  in  time.  It's  a  pity  he 
had  n't  worked  out  the  whole  scheme  a  lit 
tle  sooner.  Then  the  details  would  have 
come  of  themselves." 

Mrs.  Peyton  felt  a  contempt  strangely 
mingled  with  exultation.  If  only  the  girl 
would  talk  in  that  way  to  Dick ! 

"He  has  hardly  had  time  to  think  of 
himself  lately,"  she  said,  trying  to  keep  the 
coldness  out  of  her  voice. 

"No,  of  course  not,"  Miss  Verney  as 
sented;  "but  is  n't  that  all  the  more  reason 
for  his  friends  to  think  of  him?  It  was  very 
dear  of  him  to  give  up  everything  to  nurse 
Mr.  D  arrow — but,  after  all,  if  a  man  is  go 
ing  to  get  on  in  his  career  there  are  times 
when  he  must  think  first  of  himself." 

Mrs.  Peyton  paused,  trying  to  choose 
her  words  with  deliberation.  It  was  quite 
[137] 


SANCTUARY 

clear  now  that  Dick  had  not  spoken,  and 
she  felt  the  responsibility  that  devolved 
upon  her. 

"Getting  on  in  a  career — is  that  always 
the  first  thing  to  be  considered?"  she  asked, 
letting  her  eyes  rest  musingly  on  the  girl's. 

The  glance  did  not  disconcert  Miss  Ver- 
ney,  who  returned  it  with  one  of  equal  com 
prehensiveness.  "Yes,"  she  said  quickly,  and 
with  a  slight  blush. "  With  a  temperament 
like  Mr.  Peyton's  I  believe  it  is.  Some  peo 
ple  can  pick  themselves  up  after  any  num 
ber  of  bad  falls :  I  am  not  sure  that  he  could. 
I  think  discouragement  would  weaken  in 
stead  of  strengthening  him." 

Both  women  had  forgotten  external  con 
ditions  in  the  quick  reach  for  each  other's 
meanings.  Mrs.  Peyton  flushed,  her  mater 
nal  pride  in  revolt;  but  the  answer  was 
checked  on  her  lips  by  the  sense  of  the  girl's 
unexpected  insight.  Here  was  some  one 
who  knew  Dick  as  well  as  she  did — should 
[  138] 


SANCTUARY 

she  say  a  partisan  or  an  accomplice?  A 
dim  jealousy  stirred  beneath  Mrs.  Peyton's 
other  emotions:  she  was  undergoing  the 
agony  which  the  mother  feels  at  the  first 
intrusion  on  her  privilege  of  judging  her 
child;  and  her  voice  had  a  flutter  of  re 
sentment. 

"You  must  have  a  poor  opinion  of  his 
character,"  she  said. 

Miss  Verney  did  not  remove  her  eyes,  but 
her  blush  deepened  beautifully.  "I  have,  at 
any  rate,"  she  said,  "a  high  one  of  his  talent. 
I  don't  suppose  many  men  have  an  equal 
amount  of  moral  and  intellectual  energy." 

"And  you  would  cultivate  the  one  at 
the  expense  of  the  other?" 

"In  certain  cases — and  up  to  a  certain 
point."  She  shook  out  the  long  fur  of  her 
muff,  one  of  those  silvery  flexible  furs  which 
clothe  a  woman  with  a  delicate  sumptuous- 
ness.  Everything  about  her,  at  the  moment, 
seemed  rich  and  cold — everything,  as  Mrs. 
[  139] 


SANCTUARY 

Peyton  quickly  noted,  but  the  blush  linger 
ing  under  her  dark  skin;  and  so  complete 
was  the  girl's  self-command  that  the  blush 
seemed  to  be  there  only  because  it  had  been 
forgotten. 

"I  dare  say  you  think  me  strange,"  she 
continued.  "Most  people  do,  because  I 
speak  the  truth.  It 's  the  easiest  way  of  con 
cealing  one's  feelings.  I  can,  for  instance, 
talk  quite  openly  about  Mr.  Peyton  under 
shelter  of  your  inference  that  I  should  n't 
do  so  if  I  were  what  is  called  'interested' 
in  him.  And  as  I  am  interested  in  him,  my 
method  has  its  advantages!"  She  ended 
with  one  of  the  fluttering  laughs  which 
seemed  to  flit  from  point  to  point  of  her 
expressive  person. 

Mrs.  Peyton  leaned  toward  her.  "I  be 
lieve  you  are  interested,"  she  said  quietly; 
"and  since  I  suppose  you  allow  others  the 
privilege  you  claim  for  yourself,  I  am  go 
ing  to  confess  that  I  followed  you  here  in 
[  140  ] 


SANCTUARY 

the  hope  of  finding  out  the  nature  of  your 
interest." 

Miss  Verney  shot  a  glance  at  her,  and 
drew  away  in  a  soft  subsidence  of  undulat 
ing  furs. 

"Is  this  an  embassy  ? "  she  asked  smiling. 

"No:  not  in  any  sense." 

The  girl  leaned  back  with  an  air  of  re 
lief.  "I'm  glad;  I  should  have  disliked — 
She  looked  again  at  Mrs.  Peyton.  "You 
want  to  know  what  I  mean  to  do?" 

"Yes." 

"Then  I  can  only  answer  that  I  mean 
to  wait  and  see  what  he  does." 

"You  mean  that  everything  is  contin 
gent  on  his  success  ? " 

"/am — if  I  'm  every  thing,  "she  admitted 
gaily. 

The  mother's  heart  was  beating  in  her 
throat,  and  her  words  seemed  to  force 
themselves  out  through  the  throbs. 

"I — I  don't  quite  see  why  you  attach 
[141] 


SANCTUARY 
such  importance  to  this  special  success." 

"Because  he  does,"  the  girl  returned  in 
stantly.  "Because  to  him  it  is  the  final 
answer  to  his  self-questioning — the  ques 
tioning  whether  he  is  ever  to  amount  to 
anything  or  not.  He  says  if  he  has  anything 
in  him  it  ought  to  come  out  now.  All  the 
conditions  are  favourable — it  is  the  chance 
he  has  always  prayed  for.  You  see,"  she 
continued,  almost  confidentially,  but  with 
out  the  least  loss  of  composure — "you  see 
he  has  told  me  a  great  deal  about  himself 
and  his  various  experiments — his  phases 
of  indecision  and  disgust.  There  are  lots 
of  tentative  talents  in  the  world,  and  the 
sooner  they  are  crushed  out  by  circum 
stances  the  better.  But  it  seems  as  though 
he  really  had  it  in  him  to  do  something 
distinguished — as  though  the  uncertainty 
lay  in  his  character  and  not  in  his  talent. 
That  is  what  interests,  what  attracts  me. 
One  can't  teach  a  man  to  have  genius,  but 


SANCTUARY 

if  he  has  it  one  may  show  him  how  to  use 
it.  That  is  what  I  should  be  good  for,  you 
see — to  keep  him  up  to  his  opportunities." 

Mrs.  Peyton  had  listened  with  an  inten 
sity  of  attention  that  left  her  reply  unpre 
pared.  There  was  something  startling  and 
yet  half  attractive  in  the  girl's  avowal  of 
principles  which  are  oftener  lived  by  than 
professed. 

"And  you  think,"  she  began  at  length, 
"that  in  this  case  he  has  fallen  below  his 
opportunity?" 

"No  one  can  tell,  of  course;  but  his  dis 
couragement,  his  abattement,  is  a  bad  sign. 
I  don't  think  he  has  any  hope  of  succeed 
ing." 

The  mother  again  wavered  a  moment. 
"Since  you  are  so  frank,"  she  then  said, 
"will  you  let  me  be  equally  so,  and  ask  how 
lately  you  have  seen  him?" 

The  girl  smiled  at  the  circumlocution. 
"Yesterday  afternoon,"  she  said  simply. 


SANCTUARY 

"And  you  thought  him — " 

"Horribly  down  on  his  luck.  He  said 
himself  that  his  brain  was  empty." 

Again  Mrs.  Peyton  felt  the  throb  in  her 
throat,  and  a  slow  blush  rose  to  her  cheek. 
"Was  that  all  he  said?" 

"About  himself — was  there  anything 
else?"  said  the  girl  quickly. 

"He  didn't  tell  you  of — of  an  oppor 
tunity  to  make  up  for  the  time  he  has 
lost?" 

"An  opportunity?  I  don't  understand." 

"  He  did  n't  speak  to  you,  then,  of  Mr. 
Barrow's  letter?" 

"He  said  nothing  of  any  letter." 

"There  was  one,  which  was  found  after 
poor  D  arrow's  death.  In  it  he  gave  Dick 
leave  to  use  his  design  for  the  competition. 
Dick  says  the  design  is  wonderful — it  would 
give  him  just  what  he  needs." 

Miss  Verney  sat  listening  raptly,  with  a 
rush  of  colour  that  suffused  her  like  light. 
[  144  ] 


SANCTUARY 

"But  when  was  this?  Where  was  the 
letter  found?  He  never  said  a  word  of  it!" 
she  exclaimed. 

"The  letter  was  found  on  the  day  of 
Darrow's  death." 

"But  I  don't  understand!  Why  has  he 
never  told  me?  Why  should  he  seem  so 
hopeless?"  She  turned  an  ignorant  appeal 
ing  face  on  Mrs.  Peyton.  It  was  prodigious, 
but  it  was  true — she  felt  nothing,  saw 
nothing,  but  the  crude  fact  of  the  oppor 
tunity. 

Mrs.  Peyton's  voice  trembled  with  the 
completeness  of  her  triumph.  "I  suppose 
his  reason  for  not  speaking  is  that  he  has 
scruples." 

"Scruples?" 

"He  feels  that  to  use  the  design  would 
be  dishonest." 

Miss  Verney's  eyes  fixed  themselves  on 
her  in  a  commiserating  stare.  "Dishonest? 
When  the  poor  man  wished  it  himself? 
[145] 


SANCTUARY 

When  it  was  his  last  request?  When  the 
letter  is  there  to  prove  it?  Why,  the  design 
belongs  to  your  son !  No  one  else  has  any 
right  to  it." 

"But  Dick's  right  does  not  extend  to 
passing  it  off  as  his  own — at  least  that  is 
his  feeling,  I  believe.  If  he  won  the  com 
petition  he  would  be  winning  it  on  false 
pretenses." 

"Why  should  you  call  them  false  pre 
tenses  ?  His  design  might  have  been  better 
than  Darrow's  if  he  had  had  time  to  carry 
it  out.  It  seems  to  me  that  Mr.  Darrow 
must  have  felt  this — must  have  felt  that 
he  owed  his  friend  some  compensation  for 
the  time  he  took  from  him.  I  can  imagine 
nothing  more  natural  than  his  wishing  to 
make  this  return  for  your  son's  sacrifice." 

She  positively  glowed  with  the  force  of 

her  conviction,  and  Mrs.  Peyton,  for  a 

strange  instant,  felt   her  own  resistance 

wavering.  She  herself  had  never  considered 

[146] 


SANCTUARY 

the  question  in  that  light — the  light  of 
Darrow's  viewing  his  gift  as  a  justifiable 
compensation.  But  the  glimpse  she  caught 
of  it  drove  her  shuddering  behind  her  re 
trenchments. 

"  That  argument,"  she  said  coldly, "  would 
naturally  be  more  convincing  to  Darrow 
than  to  my  son." 

Miss  Verney  glanced  up,  struck  by  the 
change  in  Mrs.  Peyton's  voice. 

"Ah,  then  you  agree  with  him?  You 
think  it  would  be  dishonest?" 

Mrs.  Peyton  saw  that  she  had  slipped 
into  self-betrayal.  "  My  son  and  I  have  not 
spoken  of  the  matter,"  she  said  evasively. 
She  caught  the  flash  of  relief  in  Miss  Ver 
ney 's  face. 

"You  have  n't  spoken  ?  Then  how  do  you 
know  how  he  feels  about  it?" 

"I  only  judge  from — well,  perhaps  from 
his  not  speaking." 

The  girl  drew  a  deep  breath.  "I  see," 
[147] 


SANCTUARY 

she  murmured.  "That  is  the  very  reason 
that  prevents  his  speaking." 

"The  reason?" 

"Your  knowing  what  he  thinks — and 
his  knowing  that  you  know." 

Mrs.  Peyton  was  startled  at  her  subtlety. 
"  I  assure  you,"  she  said,  rising,  "that  I  have 
done  nothing  to  influence  him." 

The  girl  gazed  at  her  musingly.  "No," 
she  said  with  a  faint  smile,  "nothing  except 
to  read  his  thoughts." 


VI 

MRS.  PEYTON  reached  home  in  the  state 
of  exhaustion  which  follows  on  a  physical 
struggle.  It  seemed  to  her  as  though  her 
talk  with  Clemence  Verney  had  been  an 
actual  combat,  a  measuring  of  wrist  and 
eye.  For  a  moment  she  was  frightened  at 
what  she  had  done — she  felt  as  though  she 
had  betrayed  her  son  to  the  enemy.  But 

[148] 


SANCTUARY 

before  long  she  regained  her  moral  balance, 
and  saw  that  she  had  merely  shifted  the 
conflict  to  the  ground  on  which  it  could 
best  be  fought  out — since  the  prize  fought 
for  was  the  natural  battlefield.  The  reac 
tion  brought  with  it  a  sense  of  helpless 
ness,  a  realization  that  she  had  let  the  issue 
pass  out  of  her  hold;  but  since,  in  the  last 
analysis,  it  had  never  lain  there,  since  it 
was  above  all  needful  that  the  determin 
ing  touch  should  be  given  by  any  hand 
but  hers,  she  presently  found  courage  to 
subside  into  inaction.  She  had  done  all  she 
could — even  more,  perhaps,  than  prudence 
warranted — and  now  she  could  but  await 
passively  the  working  of  the  forces  she 
had  set  in  motion. 

For  two  days  after  her  talk  with  Miss 

Verney  she  saw  little  of  Dick.  He  went 

early  to  his  office  and  came  back  late.  He 

seemed  less  tired,  more  self-possessed,  than 

[149] 


SANCTUARY 

during  the  first  days  after  Darrow's  death; 
but  there  was  a  new  inscrutableness  in  his 
manner,  a  note  of  reserve,  of  resistance  al 
most,  as  though  he  had  barricaded  him 
self  against  her  conjectures.  She  had  been 
struck  by  Miss  Verney's  reply  to  the  anx 
ious  asseveration  that  she  had  done  no 
thing  to  influence  Dick — "Nothing,"  the 
girl  had  answered,  "except  to  read  his 
thoughts."  Mrs.  Peyton  shrank  from  this 
detection  of  a  tacit  interference  with  her 
son's  liberty  of  action.  She  longed — how 
passionately  he  would  never  know — to 
stand  apart  from  him  in  this  struggle  be 
tween  his  two  destinies,  and  it  was  almost 
a  relief  that  he  on  his  side  should  hold 
aloof,  should,  for  the  first  time  in  their  re 
lation,  seem  to  feel  her  tenderness  as  an 
intrusion. 

Only  four  days  remained  before  the  date 
fixed  for  the  sending  in  of  the  designs,  and 
still  Dick  had  not  referred  to  his  work.  Of 
[  150  1 


SANCTUARY 

Darrow,  also,  he  had  made  no  mention. 
His  mother  longed  to  know  if  he  had 
spoken  to  Clemence  Verney — or  rather  if 
the  girl  had  forced  his  confidence.  Mrs. 
Peyton  was  almost  certain  that  Miss  Ver 
ney  would  not  remain  silent — there  were 
times  when  Dick's  renewed  application  to 
his  work  seemed  an  earnest  of  her  having 
spoken,  and  spoken  convincingly.  At  the 
thought  Kate's  heart  grew  chill.  What  if 
her  experiment  should  succeed  in  a  sense 
she  had  not  intended?  If  the  girl  should 
reconcile  Dick  to  his  weakness,  should 
pluck  the  sting  from  his  temptation?  In 
this  round  of  uncertainties  the  mother  re 
volved  for  two  interminable  days;  but  the 
second  evening  brought  an  answer  to  her 
question. 

Dick,  returning  earlier  than  usual  from 

the  office,  had  found,  on  the  hall-table,  a 

note  which,  since  morning,  had  been  under 

his  mother's  observation.   The  envelope, 

[151  ] 


SANCTUARY 

fashionable  in  tint  and  texture,  was  ad 
dressed  in  a  rapid  staccato  hand  which 
seemed  the  very  imprint  of  Miss  Verney's 
utterance.  Mrs.  Peyton  did  not  know  the 
girl's  writing;  but  such  notes  had  of  late 
lain  often  enough  on  the  hall-table  to  make 
their  attribution  easy.  This  communication 
Dick,  as  his  mother  poured  his  tea,  looked 
over  with  a  face  of  shifting  lights ;  then  he 
folded  it  into  his  note-case,  and  said,  with 
a  glance  at  his  watch:  "If  you  haven't 
asked  any  one  for  this  evening  I  think  1 11 
dine  out." 

"Do,  dear;  the  change  will  be  good  for 
you,"  his  mother  assented. 

He  made  no  answer,  but  sat  leaning 
back,  his  hands  clasped  behind  his  head,  his 
eyes  fixed  on  the  fire.  Every  line  of  his  body 
expressed  a  profound  physical  lassitude,  but 
the  face  remained  alert  and  guarded.  Mrs. v 
Peyton,  in  silence,  was  busying  herself  with 
the  details  of  the  tea-making,  when  sud- 
[  152  ] 


SANCTUARY 

denly,  inexplicably,  a  question  forced  itself 
to  her  lips. 

"And  your  work — ?"  she  said,  strangely 
hearing  herself  speak. 

"My  work — ?"  He  sat  up,  on  the  defen 
sive  almost,  but  without  a  tremor  of  the 
guarded  face. 

"You  're  getting  on  well?  You  Ve  made 
up  for  lost  time  ? " 

"Oh,  yes:  things  are  going  better."  He 
rose,  with  another  glance  at  his  watch. 
"  Time  to  dress,"  he  said,  nodding  to  her  as 
he  turned  to  the  door. 

It  was  an  hour  later,  during  her  own 
solitary  dinner,  that  a  ring  at  the  door  was 
followed  by  the  parlour-maid's  announce 
ment  that  Mr.  Gill  was  there  from  the 
office.  In  the  hall,  in  fact,  Kate  found  her 
son's  partner,  who  explained  apologetically 
1  that  he  had  understood  Peyton  was  dining 
at  home,  and  had  come  to  consult  him 
about  a  difficulty  which  had  arisen  since  he 
[153] 


SANCTUARY 

had  left  the  office.  On  hearing  that  Dick 
was  out,  and  that  his  mother  did  not  know 
where  he  had  gone,  Mr.  Gill's  perplexity 
became  so  manifest  that  Mrs.  Peyton,  after 
a  moment,  said  hesitatingly:  "He  may  be 
at  a  friend's  house;  I  could  give  you  the 
address." 

The  architect  caught  up  his  hat.  "Thank 
you;  1 11  have  a  try  for  him." 

Mrs.  Peyton  hesitated  again.  "Perhaps," 
she  suggested,  "it  would  be  better  to  tele 
phone." 

She  led  the  way  into  the  little  study  be 
hind  the  drawing-room,  where  a  telephone 
stood  on  the  writing-table.  The  folding  doors 
between  the  two  rooms  were  open :  should 
she  close  them  as  she  passed  back  into  the 
drawing-room?  On  the  threshold  she  wa 
vered  an  instant ;  then  she  walked  on  and 
took  her  usual  seat  by  the  fire. 

Gill,  meanwhile,  at  the  telephone,  had 
"rung  up"  the  Verney  house,  and  inquired 
[  154  ] 


SANCTUARY 

if  his  partner  were  dining  there.  The  reply 
was  evidently  affirmative;  and  a  moment 
later  Kate  knew  that  he  was  in  communi 
cation  with  her  son.  She  sat  motionless,  her 
hands  clasped  on  the  arms  of  her  chair,  her 
head  erect,  in  an  attitude  of  avowed  at 
tention.  If  she  listened  she  would  listen 
openly:  there  should  be  no  suspicion  of 
eavesdropping.  Gill,  engrossed  in  his  mes 
sage,  was  probably  hardly  conscious  of  her 
presence;  but  if  he  turned  his  head  he 
should  at  least  have  no  difficulty  in  seeing 
her,  and  in  being  aware  that  she  could  hear 
what  he  said.  Gill,  however,  as  she  was 
quick  to  remember,  was  doubtless  igno 
rant  of  any  need  for  secrecy  in  his  com 
munication  to  Dick.  He  had  often  heard 
the  affairs  of  the  office  discussed  openly 
before  Mrs.  Peyton,  had  been  led  to  regard 
her  as  familiar  with  all  the  details  of  her 
son's  work.  He  talked  on  unconcernedly, 
and  she  listened. 

[  155  ] 


SANCTUARY 

Ten  minutes  later,  when  he  rose  to  go, 
she  knew  all  that  she  had  wanted  to  find 
out.  Long  familiarity  with  the  technicalities 
of  her  son's  profession  made  it  easy  for  her 
to  translate  the  stenographic  jargon  of  the 
office.  She  could  lengthen  out  all  Gill's  ab 
breviations,  interpret  all  his  allusions,  and 
reconstruct  Dick's  answers  from  the  ques 
tions  addressed  to  him.  And  when  the  door 
closed  on  the  architect  she  was  left  face  to 
face  with  the  fact  that  her  son,  unknown 
to  any  one  but  herself,  was  using  Darrow's 
drawings  to  complete  his  work. 

Mrs.  Peyton,  left  alone,  found  it  easier 
to  continue  her  vigil  by  the  drawing-room 
fire  than  to  carry  up  to  the  darkness  and 
silence  of  her  own  room  the  truth  she  had 
been  at  such  pains  to  acquire.  She  had  no 
thought  of  sitting  up  for  Dick.  Doubtless, 
his  dinner  over,  he  would  rejoin  Gill  at  the 
office,  and  prolong  through  the  night  the 
[  156  ] 


SANCTUARY 

task  in  which  she  now  knew  him  to  be  en 
gaged.  But  it  was  less  lonely  by  the  fire  than 
in  the  wide-eyed  darkness  which  awaited 
her  upstairs.  A  mortal  loneliness  enveloped 
her.  She  felt  as  though  she  had  fallen  by 
the  way,  spent  and  broken  in  a  struggle  of 
which  even  its  object  had  been  unconscious. 
She  had  tried  to  deflect  the  natural  course 
of  events,  she  had  sacrificed  her  personal 
happiness  to  a  fantastic  ideal  of  duty,  and 
it  was  her  punishment  to  be  left  alone  with 
her  failure,  outside  the  normal  current  of 
human  strivings  and  regrets. 

She  had  no  wish  to  see  her  son  just  then : 
she  would  have  preferred  to  let  the  inner 
tumult  subside,  to  repossess  herself  in  this 
new  adjustment  to  life,  before  meeting  his 
eyes  again.  But  as  she  sat  there,  far  adrift 
on  her  misery,  she  was  aroused  by  the  turn 
ing  of  his  key  in  the  latch.  She  started  up, 
her  heart  sounding  a  retreat,  but  her  facul 
ties  too  dispersed  to  obey  it ;  and  while  she 
[157] 


SANCTUARY 

stood  wavering,  the  door  opened  and  he  was 
in  the  room. 

In  the  room,  and  with  face  illumined :  a 
Dick  she  had  not  seen  since  the  strain  of 
the  contest  had  cast  its  shade  on  him.  Now 
he  shone  as  if  in  a  sunrise  of  victory,  hold 
ing  out  exultant  hands  from  which  she 
hung  back  instinctively. 

"Mother!  I  knew  you  'd  be  waiting  for 
me!"  He  had  her  on  his  breast  now,  and 
his  kisses  were  in  her  hair.  "I've  always 
said  you  knew  everything  that  was  happen 
ing  to  me,  and  now  you  Ve  guessed  that  I 
wanted  you  to-night." 

She  was  struggling  faintly  against  the 
dear  endearments.  "What  has  happened?" 
she  murmured,  drawing  back  for  a  dazzled 
look  at  him. 

He    had    drawn    her   to  the  sofa,  had 
dropped  beside  her,  regaining  his  hold  of 
her  in  the  boyish  need  that  his  happiness 
should  be  touched  and  handled. 
[158] 


SANCTUARY 

"My  engagement  has  happened!"  he 
cried  out  to  her.  "You  stupid  dear,  do  you 
need  to  be  told?" 

VII 

SHE  had  indeed  needed  to  be  told :  the  sur 
prise  was  complete  and  overwhelming.  She 
sat  silent  under  it,  her  hands  trembling  in 
his,  till  the  blood  mounted  to  his  face  and 
she  felt  his  confident  grasp  relax. 

"You  didn't  guess  it,  then?"  he  ex 
claimed,  starting  up  and  moving  away  from 
her. 

"No;  I  did  n't  guess  it,"  she  confessed  in 
a  dead-level  voice. 

He  stood  above  her,  half  challenging, 
half  defensive.  "And  you  haven't  a  word 
to  say  to  me?  Mother!"  he  adjured  her. 

She  rose  too,  putting  her  arms  about  him 
with  a  kiss.  "Dick!  Dear  Dick!"  she  mur 
mured. 

"She  imagines  you  don't  like  her;  she 
[159] 


SANCTUARY 

says  she 's  always  felt  it.  And  yet  she 
owns  you  Ve  been  delightful,  that  you  Ve 
tried  to  make  friends  with  her.  And  I 
thought  you  knew  how  much  it  would 
mean  to  me,  just  now,  to  have  this  uncer 
tainty  over,  and  that  you  'd  actually  been 
trying  to  help  me,  to  put  in  a  good  word 
for  me.  I  thought  it  was  you  who  had 
made  her  decide." 

"I?" 

"By  your  talk  with  her  the  other  day. 
She  told  me  of  your  talk  with  her." 

His  mother's  hands  slipped  from  his 
shoulders  and  she  sank  back  into  her  seat. 
She  felt  the  cruelty  of  her  silence,  but  only 
an  inarticulate  murmur  found  a  way  to  her 
lips.  Before  speaking  she  must  clear  a  space 
in  the  suffocating  rush  of  her  sensations. 
For  the  moment  she  could  only  repeat  in 
wardly  that  Clemence  Verney  had  yielded 
before  the  final  test,  and  that  she  herself 
was  somehow  responsible  for  this  fresh  en- 
[160] 


SANCTUARY 

tanglement  of  fate.  For  she  saw  in  a  flash 
how  the  coils  of  circumstance  had  tight 
ened;  and  as  her  mind  cleared  it  was  filled 
with  the  perception  that  this,  precisely,  was 
what  the  girl  intended,  that  this  was  why 
she  had  conferred  the  crown  before  the  vic 
tory.  By  pledging  herself  to  Dick  she  had 
secured  his  pledge  in  return :  had  put  him 
on  his  honour  in  a  cynical  inversion  of  the 
term.  Kate  saw  the  succession  of  events 
spread  out  before  her  like  a  map,  and  the 
astuteness  of  the  girl's  policy  frightened 
her.  Miss  Verney  had  conducted  the  cam 
paign  like  a  strategist.  She  had  frankly 
owned  that  her  interest  in  Dick's  future 
depended  on  his  capacity  for  success,  and 
in  order  to  key  him  up  to  his  first  achieve 
ment  she  had  given  him  a  foretaste  of  its 
results. 

So  much  was  almost  immediately  clear 
to  Mrs.  Peyton ;  but  in  a  moment  her  in 
ferences  had  carried  her  a  point  farther.  For 
[161  ] 


SANCTUARY 

it  was  now  plain  to  her  that  Miss  Verney 
had  not  risked  so  much  without  first  trying 
to  gain  her  point  at  less  cost:  that  if  she 
had  had  to  give  herself  as  a  prize,  it  was 
because  no  other  bribe  had  been  sufficient. 
This  then,  as  the  mother  saw  with  a  throb 
of  hope,  meant  that  Dick,  who  since  Dar- 
row's  death  had  held  to  his  purpose  un 
waveringly,  had  been  deflected  from  it  by 
the  first  hint  of  Clemence  Verney's  con 
nivance.  Kate  had  not  miscalculated :  things 
had  happened  as  she  had  foreseen.  In  the 
light  of  the  girl's  approval  his  act  had  taken 
an  odious  look.  He  had  recoiled  from  it, 
and  it  was  to  revive  his  flagging  courage 
that  she  had  had  to  promise  herself,  to  take 
him  in  the  meshes  of  her  surrender. 

Kate,  looking  up,  saw  above  her  the 
young  perplexity  of  her  boy's  face,  the 
suspended  happiness  waiting  to  brim  over. 
With  a  fresh  touch  of  misery  she  said  to 
herself  that  this  was  his  hour,  his  one  irre- 
[162] 


SANCTUARY 

coverable  moment,  and  that  she  was  dark 
ening  it  by  her  silence.  Her  memory  went 
back  to  the  same  hour  in  her  own  life :  she 
could  feel  its  heat  in  her  pulses  still.  What 
right  had  she  to  stand  in  Dick's  light  ?  Who 
was  she  to  decide  between  his  code  and 
hers  ?  She  put  out  her  hand  and  drew  him 
down  to  her. 

"She  '11  be  the  making  of  me,  you  know, 
mother,"  he  said,  as  they  leaned  together. 
"She  '11  put  new  life  in  me — she  '11  help  me 
get  my  second  wind.  Her  talk  is  like  a  fresh 
breeze  blowing  away  the  fog  in  my  head. 
I  never  knew  any  one  who  saw  so  straight 
to  the  heart  of  things,  who  had  such  a  grip 
on  values.  She  goes  straight  up  to  life  and 
catches  hold  of  it,  and  you  simply  can't 
make  her  let  go." 

He  got  up  and  walked  the  length  of  the 
room ;  then  he  came  back  and  stood  smil 
ing  above  his  mother. 

"You  know  you  and  I  are  rather  com- 
[163] 


SANCTUARY 

plicated  people,"  he  said.  "  We  're  always 
walking  around  things  to  get  new  views 
of  them — we  're  always  rearranging  the 
furniture.  And  somehow  she  simplifies  life 
so  tremendously."  He  dropped  down  be 
side  her  with  a  deprecating  laugh.  "Not 
that  I  mean,  dear,  that  it  has  n't  been  good 
for  me  to  argue  things  out  with  myself,  as 
you  Ve  taught  me  to — only  the  man  who 
stops  to  talk  is  apt  to  get  shoved  aside 
nowadays,  and  I  don't  believe  Milton's 
archangels  would  have  had  much  success 
in  active  business." 

He  had  begun  in  a  strain  of  easy  confi 
dence,  but  as  he  went  on  she  detected  an 
effort  to  hold  the  note,  she  felt  that  his 
words  were  being  poured  out  in  a  vain  at 
tempt  to  fill  the  silence  which  was  deep 
ening  between  them.  She  longed,  in  her 
turn,  to  pour  something  into  that  mena 
cing  void,  to  bridge  it  with  a  reconciling 
word  or  look ;  but  her  soul  hung  back,  and 
[  164  ] 


SANCTUARY 

she  had  to  take  refuge  in  a  vague  murmur 
of  tenderness. 

"My  boy!  My  boy!"  she  repeated;  and 
he  sat  beside  her  without  speaking,  their 
hand- clasp  alone  spanning  the  distance 
which  had  widened  between  their  thoughts. 

The  engagement,  as  Kate  subsequently 
learned,  was  not  to  be  made  known  till 
later.  Miss  Verney  had  even  stipulated  that 
for  the  present  there  should  be  no  recogni 
tion  of  it  in  her  own  family  or  in  Dick's. 
She  did  not  wish  to  interfere  with  his  final 
work  for  the  competition,  and  had  made 
him  promise,  as  he  laughingly  owned,  that 
he  would  not  see  her  again  till  the  draw 
ings  were  sent  in.  His  mother  noticed  that 
he  made  no  other  allusion  to  his  work ;  but 
when  he  bade  her  good-night  he  added  that 
he  might  not  see  her  the  next  morning,  as 
he  had  to  go  to  the  office  early.  She  took 
this  as  a  hint  that  he  wished  to  be  left 
[  165] 


SANCTUARY 

alone,  and  kept  her  room  the  next  day  till 
the  closing  door  told  her  that  he  was  out 
of  the  house. 

She  herself  had  waked  early,  and  it  seemed 
to  her  that  the  day  was  already  old  when 
she  came  downstairs.  Never  had  the  house 
appeared  so  empty.  Even  in  Dick's  long 
est  absences  something  of  his  presence  had 
always  hung  about  the  rooms :  a  fine  dust 
of  memories  and  associations,  which  wanted 
only  the  evocation  of  her  thought  to  float 
into  a  palpable  semblance  of  him.  But  now 
he  seemed  to  have  taken  himself  quite 
away,  to  have  broken  every  fibre  by  which 
their  lives  had  hung  together.  Where  the 
sense  of  him  had  been  there  was  only  a 
deeper  emptiness :  she  felt  as  if  a  strange 
man  had  gone  out  of  her  house. 

She  wandered  from  room  to  room,  aim 
lessly,  trying  to  adjust  herself  to  their  soli 
tude.  She  had  known  such  loneliness  be 
fore,  in  the  years  when  most  women's  hearts 
[166] 


SANCTUARY 

are  fullest ;  but  that  was  long  ago,  and  the 
solitude  had  after  all  been  less  complete, 
because  of  the  sense  that  it  might  still 
be  filled.  Her  son  had  come:  her  life  had 
brimmed  over;  but  now  the  tide  ebbed 
again,  and  she  was  left  gazing  over  a  bare 
stretch  of  wasted  years.  Wasted!  There 
was  the  mortal  pang,  the  stroke  from  which 
there  was  no  healing.  Her  faith  and  hope 
had  been  marsh-lights  luring  her  to  the 
wilderness,  her  love  a  vain  edifice  reared 
on  shifting  ground. 

In  her  round  of  the  rooms  she  came  at 
last  to  Dick's  study  upstairs.  It  was  full  of 
his  boyhood:  she  could  trace  the  history 
of  his  past  in  its  quaint  relics  and  survi 
vals,  in  the  school-books  lingering  on  his 
crowded  shelves,  the  school-photographs 
and  college-trophies  hung  among  his  later 
treasures.  All  his  successes  and  failures, 
his  exaltations  and  inconsistencies,  were 
recorded  in  the  warm  huddled  hetero- 
[167] 


SANCTUARY 

geneous  room.  Everywhere  she  saw  the 
touch  of  her  own  hand,  the  vestiges  of  her 
own  steps.  It  was  she  alone  who  held  the 
clue  to  the  labyrinth,  who  could  thread  a 
way  through  the  confusions  and  contradic 
tions  of  his  past;  and  her  soul  rejected  the 
thought  that  his  future  could  ever  escape 
from  her.  She  dropped  down  into  his 
shabby  college  armchair  and  hid  her  face 
in  the  papers  on  his  desk. 


VIII 


THE  day  dwelt  in  her  memory  as  a  long 
stretch  of  aimless  hours:  blind  alleys  of 
time  that  led  up  to  a  dead  wall  of  inaction. 
Toward  afternoon  she  remembered  that 
she  had  promised  to  dine  out  and  go  to  the 
opera.  At  first  she  felt  that  the  contact  of 
life  would  be  unendurable ;  then  she  shrank 
from  shutting  herself  up  with  her  misery. 
In  the  end  she  let  herself  drift  passively 
[168] 


SANCTUARY 

on  the  current  of  events,  going  through 
the  mechanical  routine  of  the  day  without 
much  consciousness  of  what  was  happen 
ing. 

At  twilight,  as  she  sat  in  the  drawing- 
room,  the  evening  paper  was  brought  in, 
and  in  glancing  over  it  her  eye  fell  on  a 
paragraph  which  seemed  printed  in  more 
vivid  type  than  the  rest.  It  was  headed, 
The  New  Museum  of  Sculpture,  and  un 
derneath  she  read:  "The  artists  and  archi 
tects  selected  to  pass  on  the  competitive 
designs  for  the  new  Museum  will  begin 
their  sittings  on  Monday,  and  to-morrow 
is  the  last  day  on  which  designs  may  be 
sent  in  to  the  committee.  Great  interest 
is  felt  in  the  competition,  as  the  conspic 
uous  site  chosen  for  the  new  building,  and 
the  exceptionally  large  sum  voted  by  the 
city  for  its  erection,  offer  an  unusual  field 
for  the  display  of  architectural  ability." 

She  leaned  back,  closing  her  eyes.  It 
[169] 


SANCTUARY 

was  as  though  a  clock  had  struck,  loud  and 
inexorably,  marking  off  some  irrecoverable 
hour.  She  was  seized  by  a  sudden  longing 
to  seek  Dick  out,  to  fall  on  her  knees  and 
plead  with  him:  it  was  one  of  those  physi 
cal  obsessions  against  which  the  body  has 
to  stiffen  its  muscles  as  well  as  the  mind 
its  thoughts.  Once  she  even  sprang  up  to 
ring  for  a  cab;  but  she  sank  back  again, 
breathing  as  if  after  a  struggle,  and  grip 
ping  the  arms  of  her  chair  to  keep  herself 
down. 

"I  can  only  wait  for  him — only  wait 
for  him — "  she  heard  herself  say;  and  the 
words  loosened  the  sobs  in  her  throat. 

At  length  she  went  upstairs  to  dress  for 
dinner.  A  ghost-like  self  looked  back  at 
her  from  her  toilet-glass:  she  watched  it 
performing  the  mechanical  gestures  of  the 
toilet,  dressing  her,  as  it  appeared,  without 
help  from  her  actual  self.  Each  little  act 
stood  out  sharply  against  the  blurred  back- 
[ 


SANCTUARY 

ground  of  her  brain :  when  she  spoke  to  her 
maid  her  voice  sounded  extraordinarily 
loud.  Never  had  the  house  been  so  silent; 
or,  stay — yes,  once  she  had  felt  the  same 
silence,  once  when  Dick,  in  his  school-days, 
had  been  ill  of  a  fever,  and  she  had  sat  up 
with  him  on  the  decisive  night.  The  silence 
had  been  as  deep  and  as  terrible  then;  and 
as  she  dressed  she  had  before  her  the  vision 
of  his  room,  of  the  cot  in  which  he  lay,  of 
his  restless  head  working  a  hole  in  the  pil 
low,  his  face  so  pinched  and  alien  under  the 
familiar  freckles.  It  might  be  his  death- 
watch  she  was  keeping:  the  doctors  had 
warned  her  to  be  ready.  And  in  the  silence 
her  soul  had  fought  for  her  boy,  her  love 
had  hung  over  him  like  wings,  her  abun 
dant  useless  hateful  life  had  struggled  to 
force  itself  into  his  empty  veins.  And  she 
had  succeeded,  she  had  saved  him,  she  had 
poured  her  life  into  him ;  and  in  place  of 
the  strange  child  she  had  watched  all  night, 
[171] 


SANCTUARY 

at  daylight  she  held  her  own  boy  to  her 
breast. 

That  night  had  once  seemed  to  her  the 
most  dreadful  of  her  life;  but  she  knew 
now  that  it  was  one  of  the  agonies  which 
enrich,  that  the  passion  thus  spent  grows 
fourfold  from  its  ashes.  She  could  not  have 
borne  to  keep  this  new  vigil  alone.  She 
must  escape  from  its  sterile  misery,  must 
take  refuge  in  other  lives  till  she  regained 
courage  to  face  her  own.  At  the  opera, 
in  the  illumination  of  the  first  entracte, 
as  she  gazed  about  the  house,  wondering 
through  the  numb  ache  of  her  wretched 
ness  how  others  could  talk  and  smile  and 
be  indifferent,  it  seemed  to  her  that  all  the 
jarring  animation  about  her  was  suddenly 
focussed  in  the  face  of  C lenience  Verney. 
Miss  Verney  sat  opposite,  in  the  front  of 
a  crowded  box,  a  box  in  which,  continu 
ally,  the  black-coated  background  shifted 
and  renewed  itself.  Mrs.  Peyton  felt  a 
[  172  ] 


SANCTUARY 

throb  of  anger  at  the  girl's  bright  air  of 
unconcern.  She  forgot  that  she  too  was 
talking,  smiling,  holding  out  her  hand  to 
newcomers,  in  a  studied  mimicry  of  life, 
while  her  real  self  played  out  its  tragedy 
behind  the  scenes.  Then  it  occurred  to  her 
that,  to  Clemence  Verney,  there  was  no 
tragedy  in  the  situation.  According  to  the 
girl's  calculations,  Dick  was  virtually  cer 
tain  of  success;  and  unsuccess  was  to  her 
the  only  conceivable  disaster. 

All  through  the  opera  the  sense  of  that 
opposing  force,  that  negation  of  her  own 
beliefs,  burned  itself  into  Mrs.  Peyton's 
consciousness.  The  space  between  herself 
and  the  girl  seemed  to  vanish,  the  throng 
about  them  to  disperse,  till  they  were  face 
to  face  and  alone,  enclosed  in  their  mortal 
enmity.  At  length  the  feeling  of  humilia 
tion  and  defeat  grew  unbearable  to  Mrs. 
Peyton.  The  girl  seemed  to  flout  her  in 
the  insolence  of  victory,  to  sit  there  as  the 
[173] 


SANCTUARY 

visible  symbol  of  her  failure.  It  was  bet 
ter  after  all  to  be  at  home  alone  with  her 
thoughts. 

As  she  drove  away  from  the  opera  she 
thought  of  that  other  vigil  which,  only  a 
few  streets  away,  Dick  was  perhaps  still 
keeping.  She  wondered  if  his  work  were 
over,  if  the  final  stroke  had  been  drawn. 
And  as  she  pictured  him  there,  signing 
his  pact  with  evil  in  the  loneliness  of  the 
conniving  night,  an  uncontrollable  impulse 
possessed  her.  She  must  drive  by  his  win 
dows  and  see  if  they  were  still  alight.  She 
would  not  go  up  to  him, — she  dared  not, 
— but  at  least  she  would  pass  near  to  him, 
would  invisibly  share  his  watch  and  hover 
on  the  edge  of  his  thoughts.  She  lowered 
the  window  and  called  out  the  address  to 
the  coachman. 

The  tall  office-building  loomed  silent  and 

dark  as  she  approached  it;  but  presently, 

high  up,  she  caught  a  light  in  the  familiar 

[ 


SANCTUARY 

windows.  Her  heart  gave  a  leap,  and  the 
light  swam  on  her  through  tears.  The  car 
riage  drew  up,  and  for  a  moment  she  sat 
motionless.  Then  the  coachman  bent  down 
toward  her,  and  she  saw  that  he  was  asking 
if  he  should  drive  on.  She  tried  to  shape  a 
yes,  but  her  lips  refused  it,  and  she  shook 
her  head.  He  continued  to  lean  down  per 
plexedly,  and  at  length,  under  the  inter 
rogation  of  his  attitude,  it  became  impos 
sible  to  sit  still,  and  she  opened  the  door 
and  stepped  out.  It  was  equally  impossible 
to  stand  on  the  sidewalk,  and  her  next  steps 
carried  her  to  the  door  of  the  building.  She 
groped  for  the  bell  and  rang  it,  feeling  still 
dimly  accountable  to  the  coachman  for 
some  consecutiveness  of  action,  and  after  a 
moment  the  night  watchman  opened  the 
door,  drawing  back  amazed  at  the  shining 
apparition  which  confronted  him.  Recog 
nizing  Mrs.  Peyton,  whom  he  had  seen 
about  the  building  by  day,  he  tried  to 
[175] 


SANCTUARY 

adapt  himself  to  the  situation  by  a  vague 
stammer  of  apology. 

"I  came  to  see  if  my  son  is  still  here," 
she  faltered. 

"Yes,  ma'am,  he  's  here.  He 's  been  here 
most  nights  lately  till  after  twelve." 

"And  is  Mr.  Gill  with  him?" 

"No:  Mr.  Gill  he  went  away  just  after 
I  come  on  this  evening." 

She  glanced  up  into  the  cavernous  dark 
ness  of  the  stairs. 

"Is  he  alone  up  there,  do  you  think?" 

"Yes,  ma'am,  I  know  he  's  alone,  be 
cause  I  seen  his  men  leaving  soon  after 
Mr.  Gill." 

Kate  lifted  her  head  quickly.  "Then  I 
will  go  up  to  him,"  she  said. 

The  watchman  apparently  did  not  think 
it  proper  to  offer  any  comment  on  this  un 
usual  proceeding,  and  a  moment  later  she 
was  fluttering  and  rustling  up  through  the 
darkness,  like  a  night-bird  hovering  among 
[176] 


SANCTUARY 

rafters.  There  were  ten  flights  to  climb: 
at  every  one  her  breath  failed  her,  and  she 
had  to  stand  still  and  press  her  hands 
against  her  heart.  Then  the  weight  on  her 
breast  lifted,  and  she  went  on  again,  up 
ward  and  upward,  the  great  dark  building 
dropping  away  from  her,  in  tier  after  tier 
of  mute  doors  and  mysterious  corridors. 
At  last  she  reached  Dick's  floor,  and  saw 
the  light  shining  down  the  passage  from 
his  door.  She  leaned  against  the  wall,  her 
breath  coming  short,  the  silence  throbbing 
in  her  ears.  Even  now  it  was  not  too  late 
to  turn  back.  She  bent  over  the  stairs, 
letting  her  eyes  plunge  into  the  nether 
blackness,  with  the  single  glimmer  of  the 
watchman's  light  in  its  depths;  then  she 
turned  and  stole  toward  her  son's  door. 

There  again  she  paused  and  listened, 

trying  to  catch,  through  the  hum  of  her 

pulses,  any  noise  that  might  come  to  her 

from  within.  But  the  silence  was  unbroken 

[177] 


SANCTUARY 

— it  seemed  as  though  the  office  must  be 
empty.  She  pressed  her  ear  to  the  door, 
straining  for  a  sound.  She  knew  he  never 
sat  long  at  his  work,  and  it  seemed  unac 
countable  that  she  should  not  hear  him 
moving  about  the  drawing-board.  For  a 
moment  she  fancied  he  might  be  sleeping; 
but  sleep  did  not  come  to  him  readily  after 
prolonged  mental  effort — she  recalled  the 
restless  straying  of  his  feet  above  her  head 
for  hours  after  he  returned  from  his  night 
work  in  the  office. 

She  began  to  fear  that  he  might  be  ill. 
A  nervous  trembling  seized  her,  and  she 
laid  her  hand  on  the  latch,  whispering 
"Dick!" 

Her  whisper  sounded  loudly  through  the 
silence,  but  there  was  no  answer,  and  after 
a  pause  she  called  again.  With  each  call 
the  hush  seemed  to  deepen :  it  closed  in  on 
her,  mysterious  and  impenetrable.  Her  heart 
was  beating  in  short  frightened  leaps:  a 
[178] 


SANCTUARY 

moment  more  and  she  would  have  cried 
out.  She  drew  a  quick  breath  and  turned 
the  door-handle. 

The  outer  room,  Dick's  private  office, 
with  its  red  carpet  and  easy-chairs,  stood  in 
pleasant  lamp-lit  emptiness.  The  last  time 
she  had  entered  it,  Darrow  and  Clemence 
Verney  had  been  there,  and  she  had  sat 
behind  the  urn  observing  them.  She  paused 
a  moment,  struck  now  by  a  faint  sound 
from  beyond ;  then  she  slipped  noiselessly 
across  the  carpet,  pushed  open  the  swing 
ing  door,  and  stood  on  the  threshold  of  the 
work-room.  Here  the  gas-lights  hung  a 
green-shaded  circle  of  brightness  over  the 
great  draughting-table  in  the  middle  of  the 
floor.  Table  and  floor  were  strewn  with  a 
confusion  of  papers — torn  blue-prints  and 
tracings,  crumpled  sheets  of  tracing-paper 
wrenched  from  the  draughting-boards  in  a 
sudden  fury  of  destruction ;  and  in  the  cen 
tre  of  the  havoc,  his  arms  stretched  across 
[179] 


SANCTUARY 

the  table  and  his  face  hidden  in  them,  sat 
Dick  Peyton. 

He  did  not  seem  to  hear  his  mother's 
approach,  and  she  stood  looking  at  him, 
her  breast  tightening  with  a  new  fear. 

"Dick!"  she  said,  "Dick—!"  and  he 
sprang  up,  staring  with  dazed  eyes.  But 
gradually,  as  his  gaze  cleared,  a  light  spread 
in  it,  a  mounting  brightness  of  recognition. 

"  You  've  come — you  've  come —  "  he  said, 
stretching  his  hands  to  her ;  and  all  at  once 
she  had  him  in  her  breast  as  in  a  shelter. 

"You  wanted  me?"  she  whispered  as  she 
held  him. 

He  looked  up  at  her,  tired,  breathless, 
with  the  white  radiance  of  the  runner  near 
the  goal. 

"I  had  you,  dear!"  he  said,  smiling 
strangely  on  her ;  and  her  heart  gave  a  great 
leap  of  understanding. 

Her  arms  had  slipped  from  his  neck,  and 
she  stood  leaning  on  him,  deep-suffused  in 
[180] 


SANCTUARY 

the  shyness  of  her  discovery.  For  it  might 
still  be  that  he  did  not  wish  her  to  know 
what  she  had  done  for  him. 

But  he  put  his  arm  about  her,  boyishly, 
and  drew  her  toward  one  of  the  hard  seats 
between  the  tables ;  and  there,  on  the  bare 
floor,  he  knelt  before  her,  and  hid  his  face 
in  her  lap.  She  sat  motionless,  feeling  the 
dear  warmth  of  his  head  against  her  knees, 
letting  her  hands  stray  in  faint  caresses 
through  his  hair. 

Neither  spoke  for  awhile ;  then  he  raised 
his  head  and  looked  at  her.  "I  suppose  you 
know  what  has  been  happening  to  me,"  he 
said. 

She  shrank  from  seeming  to  press  into 
his  life  a  hair's-breadth  farther  than  he  was 
prepared  to  have  her  go.  Her  eyes  turned 
from  him  toward  the  scattered  drawings  on 
the  table. 

"You  have  given  up  the  competition?" 
she  said. 

[181  ] 


SANCTUARY 

"Yes — and  a  lot  more."  He  stood  up, 
the  wave  of  emotion  ebbing,  yet  leaving 
him  nearer,  in  his  recovered  calmness,  than 
in  the  shock  of  their  first  moment. 

"  I  did  n't  know,  at  first,  how  much  you 
guessed,"  he  went  on  quietly.  "  I  was  sorry 
I  'd  shown  you  Darrow's  letter ;  but  it  did  n't 
worry  me  much  because  I  did  n't  suppose 
you  'd  think  it  possible  that  I  should — take 
advantage  of  it.  It 's  only  lately  that  I  Ve 
understood  that  you  knew  everything."  He 
looked  at  her  with  a  smile.  "I  don't  know 
yet  how  I  found  it  out,  for  you  're  won 
derful  about  keeping  things  to  yourself, 
and  you  never  made  a  sign.  I  simply  felt 
it  in  a  kind  of  nearness — as  if  I  couldn't 
get  away  from  you.  —  Oh,  there  were  times 
when  I  should  have  preferred  not  having 
you  about — when  I  tried  to  turn  my  back 
on  you,  to  see  things  from  other  people's 
standpoint.  But  you  were  always  there — 
you  would  n't  be  discouraged.  And  I  got 
[  182] 


SANCTUARY 

tired  of  trying  to  explain  things  to  you,  of 
trying  to  bring  you  round  to  my  way  of 
thinking.  You  would  n't  go  away  and  you 
would  n't  come  any  nearer — you  just  stood 
there  and  watched  everything  that  I  was 
doing." 

He  broke  off,  taking  one  of  his  restless 
turns  down  the  long  room.  Then  he  drew 
up  a  chair  beside  her,  and  dropped  into  it 
with  a  great  sigh. 

"At  first,  you  know,  I  hated  it  most 
awfully.  I  wanted  to  be  let  alone  and  to 
work  out  my  own  theory  of  things.  If  you  'd 
said  a  word — if  you'd  tried  to  influence  ^^ 
me — the  spell  would  have  been  broken. 
But  just  because  the  actual  you  kept  apart 
and  didn't  meddle  or  pry,  the  other,  the 
you  in  my  heart,  seemed  to  get  a  tighter 
hold  on  me.  I  don't  know  how  to  tell  you, 
— it's  all  mixed  up  in  my  head — but  old 
things  you  'd  said  and  done  kept  coming 
back  to  me,  crowding  between  me  and  what 
[  183  ] 


SANCTUARY 

I  was  trying  for,  looking  at  me  without 
speaking,  like  old  friends  I  'd  gone  back  on, 
till  I  simply  could  n't  stand  it  any  longer. 
I  fought  it  off  till  to-night,  but  when  I  came 
back  to  finish  the  work  there  you  were 
again — and  suddenly,  I  don't  know  how, 
you  were  n't  an  obstacle  any  longer,  but  a 
refuge — and  I  crawled  into  your  arms  as 
I  used  to  when  things  went  against  me  at 
school." 

His  hands  stole  back  into  hers,  and  he 
leaned  his  head  against  her  shoulder  like  a 
boy. 

"  I  'm  an  abysmally  weak  fool,  you  know," 
he  ended ;  "  I  'm  not  worth  the  fight  you've 
put  up  for  me.  But  I  want  you  to  know 
that  it's  your  doing — that  if  you  had  let 
go  an  instant  I  should  have  gone  under — 
and  that  if  I  'd  gone  under  I  should  never 
have  come  up  again  alive." 

THE    END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


24Mar58MF 


n 


REC'DLD 


15NOV64BE 
REC'D  LD 


PW 
IN  STACKS 


DEC  1  0  1964 


LD  21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 

. 


REC'D  LD 


REC 

WL 


0V  1  4  1965     5 
OEC12«6761 


YB  69817 


